


The Adventures of Lance and Noodle

by evlytheevilqueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (chapter 11), (chapter 6), (for chapter 4), Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hurt/Comfort, I have made up a planet and an alien race there you go, Lance is a precious ball of insecurities after all, M/M, Multi, POV Hunk (Voltron), POV Shiro (Voltron), Pidge POV, Rating May Change, and she will tackle you and tell you she's very happy with her paladin thank you, because I am taking it especially literally in chapter 3, should probably be a tag here too, so this turned a tad more angsty and less silly and fluffy than planned, tags shall be added as the story continues, this turned out way more self-indulgent than anticipated oh well, try to take Lance away from Blue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evlytheevilqueen/pseuds/evlytheevilqueen
Summary: “You... found a tiny glowing snake?” Pidge furrowed her brow at him.“This is Noodle.” Lance presented her once again with a little more flourish. “And she's a sentient being able to communicate, so a little more respect please.”Lance rescues a tiny glowing snake. They get attached. The rest is history.





	1. How Lance Found Noodle

**Author's Note:**

> This story was actually inspired by art. That I can't link just yet because sadly both the art itself and the caption are very spoilery and I don't want to ruin the reveal. It shall be linked as soon as it's not gonna be a spoiler anymore, though. Points for everyone who can guess the art before it's revealed!  
> So I am very terrible at regular updates, but I'm going to try my best. I did start the next chapter right away, though. This story just had to get out before it's finished because it might end up even longer than expected, knowing me. Comments do not actually discourage me from posting faster, so if you wanna leave one, I'm not stopping you.

**How Lance Found Noodle**

It all started when they encountered another part of the Galra fleet that transported prisoners. Pidge tore through the soldiers almost before any of the rest of them could draw their bayards and after a tense look among each other they all followed her break-neck pace to the holding cells. Thankfully this one didn't seem as well-staffed as the last few they'd come across so they only had to fight their way through for a short time. No one had gotten even so much as a scratch and Pidge finally burst her way through the door only to sag in disappointment when the almost empty cell definitely didn't hold any humanoid beings.

Just to be careful they checked all the other cells down the hallway, even if the scans indicated that only one of the cells held living creatures. Lance was about to start complaining about the pointlessness of that exercise after his third empty cell – so far the scanner had never led them wrong – when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Carefully, bayard in hand, he approached the corner of the fourth cell where he thought he'd seen something. Sweat was starting to drip down the neck of his suit and the sound of his own breathing sounded incredibly loud in his own ears.

When he was finally close enough to recognize what he was seeing he had to suppress a relieved laugh. A tiny, snake-like creature with faint glowing marks was curled up in the darkest corner of the cell, looking up at Lance with bright, luminescent eyes. Snakes didn't really do facial expressions, Lance knew that, but this one almost seemed... curious? Lance had no idea why the Galra had locked up a tiny snake of all things in a high security cell in a remote prisoner ship.

“Hey buddy! What are you doing here? Pissed off Zarkon somehow, huh? Wanna come with us and leave this boring old ship behind?”

The snake kinda... hissed at him? For a moment, Lance was worried that he'd somehow offended it. Maybe something he'd said was violating the greeting customs of its species?

Then the snake was suddenly curled around his ankle and weaving up his body. Lance held very still and only dared to breathe again once it had come to a rest curled up on his shoulder, seemingly content with its new vantage point. That was a good sign, right? Looked to him like he had made a new buddy.

“Guys? Are you done searching? I've found one last passenger for us.” He ignored the excited chatter coming from the others in favor of carefully stepping down the hallway, not wanting to upset his tiny passenger. It was a lot like that afternoon his little sister Angie had found a snake in one of the more secluded parts of Varadero Beach and they'd switched off carrying it around all day.

“Hey, do you have a name?” The snake lifted its head to look at him. It was kinda tilted to the side, like when a puppy was giving you that really questioning look? As much as a snake-like creature could imitate that. “Do you mind if I call you something in the meantime? How about Noodle?” So maybe he was a terrible name giver and had stolen that name from when his nine-year-old cousin had named their pet snake, so what? Noodle nudged his cheek with its cold little head and a content feeling went through him, kinda like when Blue had first 'spoken' to him. Looked to Lance like Noodle was fine with its name and had chosen him as its human.

“How do I introduce you? 'It' seems a little impersonal. He, she, neither? Them? Any preferences? Other alien pronouns?” He felt a cautious poke in his head at she. Lance didn't really have the impression that Noodle knew what genders were or that she cared very much, but she seemed to like the sound of the female pronouns, so those it were until she decided otherwise.

“Okay, cool.” Lance came to a stop in front of two branching paths. He... had no clue which one he'd come from. “Hey, beautiful, you wouldn't happen to know which way leads back to my friends, huh? Like, out of this hell ship?”

This time the poke in his head felt very familiar – fond amusement. Noodle uncurled a little, pointing her tail down the hallway on the left. “Aaalright, left it is.”

Noodle kept guiding him confidently through the maze of hallways until he stumbled into the hanger bay they had entered through. Everyone else was already assembled next to Blue and Green. Shiro narrowed his eyes at him.

“I thought you said you found another prisoner?”

Lance grinned at them, pointing at his shoulder with a flourish when he was close enough for them to make out Noodle against the backdrop of his suit. She was kinda glowing blue, it was a good camouflage. Even if the rest of her was black.

“You... found a tiny glowing snake?” Pidge furrowed her brow at him.

“This is Noodle.” Lance presented her once again with a little more flourish. “And she's a sentient being able to communicate, so a little more respect please.”

Shiro's mouth looked very tight. His lips definitely weren't that thin normally. Lance would know, he'd spent an inordinate time staring at them, after all. He felt another amused prod from Noodle. Great, so she could read his mind whenever she wanted??

Shiro rudely interrupted Lance's internal panicking. “Is this like the time we rescued Slav? We can't go around collecting people's pets all the time.”

Before Lance could come up with an appropriately indignant reply, Shiro froze, his eyes going wide. For a moment Lance was worried that he was having one of his throw-back episodes to his time as a galra prisoner – they were on a Galran prisoner ship, after all, it wasn't that farfetched that something here would set him off. But then his eyes, still very much in the then and there, turned to Noodle.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you.” He turned to Lance, eyes still wide. His tone took on this note of quiet disapproval that made Lance feel guilty before he even figured out what to feel guilty for. “Noodle, though, Lance?”

“What?” He huffed, ignoring Keith's smug smirk and Pidge's snickering in the background. “Noodle likes her name, don't you, Noodle?” Noodle raised herself to boop his cheek with her tiny cool snake head, then curled up again. Ha, that would show them!

“I think it's an awesome name,” Hunk said. He had that expression like he was trying very hard not to think about his Mom's pasta right then. It was really a toss-up whether it was because it would just make him homesick or hungry. A shudder ran through him and he gave Noodle a wide-eyed stare of his own.

“Was that Noodle??!”

“Yep, she communicates kinda like our lions? Told you, she's real smart.” Another affectionate wash of warmth through his mind. “I bet she likes you, Hunk.”

Hunk smiled, looking a lot less freaked out. “I think so? It wasn't a bad feeling, I was just surprised.”

Keith and Pidge gave them almost identical skeptic looks. “Are you sure you weren't hit on the head on the way to the holding cells?” Pidge asked with a raised eyebrow. Before Keith could throw in a no doubt annoying comment they both twitched, turning surprised and slightly guilty stares on Lance's shoulder.

“If everyone's done doubting Noodle, we have prisoners to bring to the healing pods and feed before we help them to their home planets.” Nose up in the air, Lance marched past them to Blue. For once her eyes didn't seem to follow Lance's every movement as he approached. Well, they kinda did, but the focus seemed to be on Noodle. Lance wondered what kind of conversation these two were having and if it was like words to them because they both communicated the same way or if it was still just as abstract as when they talked to him.

Either way, Blue didn't throw a fit when Lance made his way to the pilot seat with Noodle on his shoulder, so she couldn't have been too opposed. Lance magnanimously ignored the apologetic murmuring from the other lions and started playing travel games with Noodle. Granted, I Spy With My Little Eye was not as entertaining in space since the answers were mostly 'void' or 'stars' but Noodle seemed amused enough. Lance _was_ trying to mix it up as much as he could, after all. And maybe he was also trying to figure out just how much Noodle could dig around in his head while he was at it, asking things she couldn't possibly see and would have to search for in his memories. Like what colors Allura's battle suit had.

It was kinda complicated getting concrete answers with the way Noodle was communicating, so they mostly made do with Lance trying to let his thoughts go as blank as possible and Noodle trying to nudge him in the right direction. Blue made sure Noodle wasn't peeking while Lance was still trying to decide on something, though she did sometimes push Noodle in the right direction when she got bored, that old cheater.

By the time they arrived at the castle, Allura and Coran were already waiting for them to greet their new guests. Though their reaction couldn't have been more different from the paladins when they finally caught sight of Noodle on Lance's shoulder.

Allura bowed quite deeply – and okay, maybe it was only in his direction and not actually directed at him, but Lance allowed himself the luxury of feeling Very Important nevertheless, deliberately ignoring the amused prods from Blue and Noodle. “We are very honored to receive you here. I hope you will find the castle to be an acceptable temporary shelter while you recover from your imprisonment. I am Princess Allura of Altea and I am welcoming you warmly to all the assistance we can offer you.”

Noodle prodded at Lance until he held out his arm for her to slither down. Once she was settled in his hand she graciously leaned down to press her head against Allura's forehead. It looked kind of like a benediction to Lance and Allura's eyes were wide and baffled when she lifted her head back up and stood straight once more. Lance wondered what Noodle's mental touch felt like to the others. It never seemed to have quite the same effect it had on him.

As soon as Allura was upright again Noodle wound herself up Lance's arm until she was on his shoulder once more, giving everyone else a haughty look. Insofar as a tiny snake-like being could look haughty. Coran hurried to bow as well and repeated most of Allura's sentiment but Noodle didn't prod Lance to move this time. Lance could tell by the shiver in his moustache that she had contacted him, though. When Lance gently asked her if she was okay in his mind he felt tiredness crest over him that wasn't his own.

“Allura? Do we have any place for Noodle to sleep? She seems a little tired.” Allura started to detail the castle's sleeping arrangements, customized for different species, for all of their rescued guests. Hunk and Coran were discussing appropriate food options with a being that looked like a cross between a giant centipede and a purple dragon in the background. Apparently it was one of the rare species that they'd neither encountered nor had somewhere in the Altean data base, so everyone was unsure of the centipede-dragons dietary requirements. Lance really hoped 'humanoid flesh' wasn't on the list. Pidge had already dragged off some poor, unsuspecting alien to the side to play her usual game of at least 20 questions about what they knew about where the other prisoners were being held. Shiro and Keith were standing very close together and whispering furiously about something. Lance quickly averted his eyes, trying to ignore the pang of longing in his gut.

Noodle graciously distracted him by putting an impression of water into his mind and gently pulling an image of his room in the castle to the forefront. “You just need water and you want to stay in my room with me?” Lance asked, hoping he was connecting the right dots and not making offensive or stupid assumptions. Noodle moved lazily to boop his throat, curling back up into a tiny glowy snake ball almost immediately. Lance hesitantly trailed a fingertip over her head. The ensuing feeling of warmth in his mind reminded him of when their cat Lulu would curl up on him and start to purr.

“Allura, is it okay for Noodle to sleep in my room?” Allura gave him a skeptical look but her eyes fluttered shut almost immediately and when she opened them again she was smiling at him, something like pride in her eyes.

“She seems to be quite attached to you, I don't see why not, since it's her wish. Unless you are uncomfortable with this arrangement?”

Lance smiled back at her, gently shaking his head. “No, I'm fine. If it's okay with you I'm just going to get her set up and catch a shower now.” She nodded at him and Lance weaved his way through the hanger bay, determined to ignore the uptake in Shiro and Keith's whispering as he passed them.

Once he arrived in his room he filled the sink in his bathroom with water and let Noodle slide in. She happily did a few laps, instantly a lot more awake, then dove under and curled up again. She poked at his mind until he stopped worrying about her drowning and went to get his own shower, after which she let him pick her up and gently pat her dry with his softest towel. He carried her over to his bed cradled in his hands and she went straight for his pillow when he put her down, curling up and sending him warmth and contentment.

“Anything else I can do for you?” She minutely shook her head and flicked out her tongue at him. “So you need water, hmm. Looked pretty dry in that cell. Should I put a little basin or something close to the bed or are you okay like this?” Noodle did the wordless mental equivalent of telling him to stop fretting so much and get his ass down for dinner, so Lance assumed she was peachy as was and booked it downstairs.

The usual good mood after a prison break was soured by more than just Pidge's customary grumbling about not being any closer to finding her family that evening, though. Shiro and Keith were both distractingly tense and they kept giving Lance these _looks_ and exchanging glances that looked more like silent conversations and it was driving Lance _mad_. After half an hour of this Lance had enough, dropping his fork with a resounding clunk and crossing his arms over his chest.

“So, spit it out. What is your problem? Why are you being all weird and keep staring at me?”

Hunk tried to shrink away from the table, Pidge, Coran and Allura pretended very hard nothing was happening and Shiro had that neutral diplomatic face on that was pretty much the only facial expression Lance actively hated on him. Keith, though. That little hot-headed mullet never disappointed.

“Our problem,” he said through gritted teeth, leaning across the table until he was as in Lance's face as he could without actually getting up and walking around to him. “Is you letting that _thing_ sleep in your room. We don't know anything about it. What it is, what it wants, why the Galra locked it up or why it attached itself to you of all people-”

Shiro's diplomatic mask fell away into disapproval and he was moving to pull Keith back in his seat and shush him, but Lance was quicker.

“Oh?” He shot up to lean towards Keith, his chair cluttering to the ground behind him. “First of all, Noodle is not an it. And only because she doesn't want to communicate with _you_ doesn't mean she's the enemy. She'll tell us how and why she ended up there when and if _she_ wants. But I'm pretty sure she's on our side by simple virtue of hating the Galra, considering she needs water to survive and I found her in a completely dry, empty cell. So why don't you back down and just swallow the fact that you're not the special chosen one for once, mullet brain.”

Keith's face had taken on a shade worthy of his lion, but just as he opened his mouth to counter Shiro's hand on his shoulder shut him up. Lance narrowed his eyes at him and pointed an accusing finger. “And you! That's what you were whispering about earlier, that's why you were so tense during dinner. You actually think he's right, don't you?”

Shiro took a deep sigh before answering, which just served to make Lance even more furious. “Look, Lance, I know you think we're being paranoid, but we know nothing about Noodle. How many beings have we met that can communicate like our lions? That speaks for a highly advanced race. How did the Galra even capture her? What did they want with her? It seems pretty weird that a highly intelligent creature would be content riding around on your shoulder-”

Lance slapped the table, maybe a little more forcefully than he had meant to. Well, it served its purpose and shut everyone up. “Just because you guys apparently think no intelligent creature wants anything to do with me doesn't mean everyone else will think the same. I have no idea what it's like for you when Noodle communicates with you, but I know she means us no harm. Great to know you can't even comprehend the concept of someone preferring my company, but it seems to me like Noodle is perfectly fine with me not being the most special snowflake in the room and that doesn't automatically make her suspect. So spare me the lecture and maybe cool down on the paranoia front for a bit, if you can find the time in-between patting yourself on the back, oh mighty leader who knows all.”

Lance turned on his heel, speech delivered, not waiting for anyone to react. Okay, so maybe his insecurities had been heaping up under the surface for a while now. Maybe it didn't help that Keith and Shiro had finally gotten over whatever had held them back for so long a month ago and started dating and it killed Lance a little inside every time he accidentally walked in on them kissing or sharing those intensely private looks. Because he'd never had a chance with either of them because he wasn't special, didn't have a thing that made him important like everybody else on this goddamn ship. Because out here, with Voltron, just being Lance would never be enough. It never had been enough, not at the Garrison, not at school. He wasn't the best at anything in his family, either, not like his little sister Yvelisse who drew pictures so beautiful it made him cry or his big sister Sofia who looked weightless when she danced. But at home being just Lance was better, didn't feel quite so much like failure, because everyone loved him and he knew it. They didn't have expectations or conditions, and while he was nothing really special he was Lance, the big brother or the little brother, the cool cousin who was training to be a pilot and told cool stories and was fun to be around. Little cousins and siblings would follow you around and worship you almost automatically for a while there, just for the sake of you being older and 'cooler' and allowed up past eight.

And that could be enough to drown out the doubts, and when it wasn't he'd talk to his abuelita and she'd hold his face in her hands and tell him he was loved and worthy and she was so proud of him, and his mom would hug him and his uncle Esteban would get him garlic knots because they somehow always just _knew._

Out here though? Out here no one knew him like that. Hunk had a bit of a sixth sense, but Hunk wasn't his mom or his abuelita, Lance would never be as much of an open book for him even when he tried to be. Out here, it did matter that he couldn't match up, that he was the odd one out with no special thing, so much more than ever before. There were lives at stake if he didn't measure up. Maybe they should get a new blue paladin, someone better, someone more, but Lance was too selfish to give up his spot on this team, this second family he'd found out here in space.

Lance wasn't stupid. He'd looked into the castle's files, he'd been curious when Allura hadn't finished her sentence, hadn't told them what the Blue Lion looked for in a paladin, so sue him. He knew that Blue was the most friendly and welcoming of the bunch, that she'd accept new paladins most easily. He was well aware that he was the easiest to replace all around.

And now some of it had come bubbling up and he'd become a special brand of pathetic on top of everything else. He'd felt a little better for a while there after they'd rescued Slav, but every time Shiro or Allura had passed him up or dismissed him had taken him back down another notch and it was all too much. Were Keith and Shiro, of all people, thinking so little of him that it was really so unimaginable for them that Noodle just liked him and hadn't picked him because he was the most naïve, most gullible one, the least competent person on the team who would be the easiest to deceive and use?

Finally, Lance had made it to his room, fighting down the tears so Noodle wouldn't have to wake up to a pathetically sobbing blue paladin. He tried to sneak in as quietly as possible, tiptoed to the bed to nothing but the light of Noodle's faintly glowing markings. He curled up on his covers as carefully as possible, but just when he had half convinced himself that he hadn't woken Noodle the faint glow moved and slithered down the pillow until she'd curled up with her head on his chest, right over his heart. She touched his mind, so gentle it almost broke Lance's resolve not to cry, and then there was warmth and love and the feeling of his mom's arms around him and his abuelita's hands on his face and Yvelisse leaning against him on the couch while drawing the ocean, Sofia draped across his lap. She pried forward every time Hunk had hugged him to make him feel less homesick, every time Pidge had bantered with him just for the hell of it, that Shiro and Allura had praised him, pushing back the insecurities. She couldn't say it herself in words, but she made him recall the times his abuelita had told him how loved and worthy he was and she fed him images of being treated like dirt and denied water, avoided by even the other prisoners, of a cold lonely cell when there was suddenly a boy with a bright smile who spoke with respect, who treated her like a smart being, who asked her questions. Who was so careful while carrying her and defended her and gave her hope and wouldn't let anyone touch or mistreat her. She let him feel what it was like to touch his mind, how it was a warm and safe and sunny place for her. Told him with feelings and images and ideas that he was good, so good, that she'd known she was safe when she'd touched his heart because it was loving and kind and loyal.

She pulled in Blue, made her show him that it had been the same for her, that she hadn't just picked him because he was there, that she wasn't any more willing to let anyone else pilot her than Red was with Keith, that she'd fight anyone who tried unless he was gone for good or rejected her first. Lance pulled them closer in his mind, let their warmth and love and the good memories of his families envelop him and fell asleep to wet cheeks and a smile and Noodle on his chest, blissfully unaware of the frantic knocking at his door.


	2. Lance Gets Some Much-Needed Hugs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As advertised in the chapter title. This is a lot more schmoopy than the last chapter. Ah yes, the calm before the storm...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A) Oh my god, I'm blown away by the number of wonderful comments I've gotten in the few hours since I posted this! I don't think I've ever gotten so much positive response in such a short span of time. Obviously that motivated me greatly, so I used my Sunday to deliver the next one straight away. Chapter 3 will most likely not come quite as quickly, but feel free to keep the nice words coming! :)  
> B) I have figured out a vague plot for this, who would have thought? At least the next few chapters have a mostly set path in my mind now, though it remains to be seen how much of it Lance will let me keep ;)

**Lance Gets Some Much-Needed Hugs**

Lance woke up the next morning disoriented and with a headache, smile still on his face and Noodle curled up in his hair. Which he only noticed when he stumbled into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He carefully washed his face without disturbing Noodle, cursing himself for neglecting his skin care routine. There was still a warm, fond echo of Blue and Noodle's combined efforts to reassure him, and it kept him smiling as he filled the sink for Noodle and went to belatedly put on his face mask. Ten minutes beat no treatment whatsoever, after all. Noodle watched him with interest as he rummaged around the bathroom, brushing his hair and teeth, clamoring for a change of clothes in his wardrobe. He wasn't going to bother with a shower, not when he knew that Allura would just make them practice to exhaustion in the afternoon. When he was done, Noodle reclaimed her new place on top of Lance's head and Lance stepped out of his room feeling reborn and praying that everyone else would just do him a solid and forget about last night's outburst. Well, except for the part where they should trust Noodle.

He stumbled over Pidge and Hunk's sleeping forms as soon as he crossed the threshold, nearly faceplanting into the wall across from it.

“What?!” The only response he got was a sleepy 'huh?' from Pidge, who was rubbing her eyes and slowly rising from where she had landed on top of Hunk. Hunk didn't seem bothered by the falling and screeching and kept on sleeping on the floor.

“What are you guys doing in front of my door?!”

Pidge had the audacity to glare at _Lance_ once her eyes had opened past narrow slits. “What are we doing here? You basically had an emotional meltdown all across the dinner table last night. Not that I haven't been waiting for that for a while now. And then you didn't open your door for hours when we kept pounding on it like crazy people. Because we were _worried_ about you, you absolute moron.”

“Oh.” Lance felt himself sagging against his new good friend, the wall. Of course. Of course Hunk would come looking for him. How didn't Lance anticipate that? If Hunk had pulled anything like this, Lance for sure would have been waiting at his door. They were best friends after all. Hunk was the closest thing to family-family he had out here. He really had been in deep yesterday, huh? Good thing Noodle and Blue had pulled him out.

He was a little surprised at Pidge being here too, though.

“So... you just stayed the night? Both of you?”

Pidge glared at him some more, then looked away, arms crossed, adjusting her glasses. “Of course. We needed to make sure that you weren't doing anything stupid. And I couldn't in good conscience leave Hunk to sleep in the creepy castle hallway on his own.”

Lance had grown up with enough smart-ass teenagers to read between the lines. And there was clearly only one course of action that wouldn't end in embarrassing tears. “Awww, Pidgeon, you do care! How sweet!” He leaned down to ruffle her hair and she furiously batted his hand away.

“Stop that!” They mock-wrestled for a bit but the heat went out of it quickly and suddenly there was a Pidge-shaped, four-armed octopus tightly attached to his middle.

“Guess there are three highly intelligent beings that can stand to hang around you.” It was mumbled into the fabric of his shirt at bellybutton height, but Lance understood well enough. He sniffed like a very tough paladin of Voltron to keep the touched tears at bay, barely noticing as Noodle slithered down his neck and arm to settle on Pidge's head, bathing them in additional warmth. Neither of them had let got yet.

“Are we having a group hug?” Lance turned his head to see that Hunk had finally woken up and was now blinking up at them with bleary eyes. That very quickly turned into kicked puppy dog eyes. “And no one woke me up for this?”

Pidge made to detach herself from Lance, clearly sensing the danger here, but before she could Hunk had jumped to his feet in a moment of impressive nimbleness and pulled both of them into his arms. And man, was it good. Maybe not so much for Pidge, what with her face now being extra smashed into Lance's stomach, which was probably counterproductive to, like, breathing. But Hunk hugs sure were something else. It was the strong arms around you that always got the perfect balance between gentle and tight for every occasion and how warm he always was and you could just feel it resonate in your _soul_ how much he genuinely cared. Lance and Pidge freed one arm each from around each other at almost the exact same time, and they were both pulling Hunk in closer, so Pidge was probably still able to breathe. Hunk was magic like that.

“So, what's the occasion? Not that this wasn't sorely needed after yesterday.” Hunk rested his head on Lance's, gently rearranging both him and Pidge until everyone was in a comfortable position for a long-term hug. Lance caught a quick glance of Noodle leaving her place on Pidge's head to slither up Hunk's arm and get comfortable on his shoulder.

“After yesterday?” Pidge snorted, leaving a gross snot trail on Hunk's vest where her face was now kinda buried in his chest. “This has been due for weeks at least.”

Hunk hummed non-committally into Lance's hair. Lance was too comfortable to even pretend to get outraged at that clear dig at him. Not much to deny there, after all, huh? Pidge was right, otherwise he never would have blown up like that yesterday.

“So, how much do Keith and Shiro hate me now?” He muttered it into Hunk's other shoulder, hoping against hope that maybe no one would catch the words. Pidge snorted again and pinched him in the side where her other arm was still around him, blinking one eye open to give him an unimpressed look. Lance had never felt so judged by just one eye, while standing in an ongoing group hug.

“They don't hate you, idiot. Have you met Shiro? He's been moping around and blaming himself all over the place since you stormed out of the dining room. Keith has only spoken in monosyllables and become even more emo and brooding, which I assume means he's doing the same. And neither of them looks like they've had any sleep.”

“How do you know all that? We went after Lance almost immediately and we have been here ever since.” Hunk adjusted the arm around Lance to gently pet his hair. Lance hadn't even realized how much he'd tensed up again until he went boneless against Hunk at the attention.

“Allura has been keeping me updated.”

Lance let out a mock-gasp that ended up sounding more like a purr because Hunk's fingers had been pressing into that one spot on his scalp just so. “You've been checking your communicator during our heartfelt, emotional hug?”

“Who do you take me for, Espinosa? Of course I have.”

That started a pinching war that Hunk eventually had to stop by squishing them to his chest and only letting them go when they were both begging for air.

“So what do I do about breakfast?” Lance asked, absentmindedly rubbing his sore side where Pidge had dug in her evil, evil tiny scientist claws.

Hunk narrowed his eyes at him. “You can't pretend nothing happened.”

Lance groaned, sagging back against the wall. “Why nooot? We're a team, right? Practically family? Forgive and forget, I say. Can't I just tell them that I had a bad night's sleep and I'm sorry?”

Three pairs of judging eyes turned on him. Lance hadn't known snake-like beings could look so judgmental.

“Lance, no, this has to be cleared now, before it has any more time to fester. Don't make me use your full name.”

Lance whined for a bit, just because he could and also to avoid Pidge's curious stare. No way in hell was he giving her that much ammo against him. She already had enough blackmail material to last her for years. And it wasn't like she wouldn't hack his files later and find out, anyway. Which was probably why she wasn't pestering him right now.

“What's there to clear? If they don't trust me about Noodle that clearly doesn't speak for their high opinion of me, and I reaaaally don't want to hear them say out loud that they think I'm too gullible and the weakest link of the team.”

Hunk and Pidge stared at him completely gobsmacked, eyes wide and mouths open, not moving until Noodle nudged Hunk to bring her over to Lance. The moment she was back on his shoulder she nipped him none-too-gently in the cheek, her disapproval clear in his mind as she wound back into his hair.

Pidge recovered first. “Seriously? That's what you get from them? You really, seriously think that Keith and Shiro think you're the weakest link and can't be trusted?”

Lance shifted on his feet, avoiding their eyes and grabbing his right arm with his left, shoulders hunched. “What other interpretation is there? I know they like to be paranoid, especially Keith, but if they trusted me-”

“My man, my buddy, my bro, let me stop you right here, please.” Hunk looked as earnest as the day Lance had given him his mum's garlic knot recipe to try out (second best garlic knots in the universe, sorry, mum). “I think you may have gone selectively blind. Because that is not _at all_ what anyone else sees when we look at the way Keith and Shiro are around you.”

Lance made to shake his head but was interrupted by Pidge huffing at him, a hundred percent done. “You're being too nice. He's fucking obtuse, is what he is. They're overreacting because they're worried about you and trying to protect you, you buffoon!”

Aaaand there went Lance's even temper. “I don't need protection! I can take care of myself and I know what I'm doing! They don't have to look out for me all the time, and they would realize that if they didn't think-”

“Lance, no offense, but you are literally a walking human disaster,” Pidge said over him, grabbing his wildly gesticulating hands and pulling them down with a little more force than necessary. “Okay, maybe a little offense intended. What we're trying to say is, they're not overprotective of you because they think you're incompetent. They're acting like pissy mother hens because they _like_ you. A _lot_.”

Lance blinked at her. “As... friends?”

Pidge let his hands fall with a pained groan, gesturing for Hunk to take over. “No, man. As in they're actually pining just as pathetically for you as you are pining after them. It's actually kinda sad to watch sometimes, how you never seem to catch any of that romcom longing glance stuff they're doing. Especially Keith.”

“I- you're kidding me, right? You're making that up. Shiro and Keith are _not_ soulfully glancing at me. _Especially_ not Keith. I would have noticed. I-” Lance's rant was cut short by two resigned headshakes.

“They totally are, bro. I don't know how you manage to never see it, but it's definitely there. And while I haven't creepily spied on them through Allura,” he gave Pidge the side-eye, to absolutely no effect. “I'm pretty sure they feel really horrible about you thinking they don't consider you special or an important part of the team.”

“But... They have each other. What would they want with me?”

“Goddamnit Lance!” Pidge threw her hands up in the air, stomping over to him to pull him into a bone-crushing hug. Hunk looked physically pained and Noodle was pulling disapprovingly at his hair and sending him equally unimpressed vibes from Blue.

“You are important, okay? You really _are_ an impressive sharpshooter and we need someone to make light of the situation sometimes because otherwise we'd just sit around in our own depressed little bubbles, paralyzed by the weight of this whole Voltron thing. We need someone who's open and welcoming and not paranoid or scared or bitter all the time. There. Now I've said it. Don't make me compliment you again.” Pidge had started sniffing towards the end of her speech. For which Lance was very grateful because he and Hunk were openly bawling at this point.

“I'm scared pretty much all of the time, too,” he somehow got out between waves of tears.

“Yeah, but,” Hunk took a deep breath to unclog his throat. “You don't let that stop you, you never do. And that is so impressive, bro. And you're like, a bit of each of us and it balances out. You're impulsive and emotional and smart and calm and leader-y under pressure and none of that is your one defining characteristic that dictates everything you do. I know you think that means that you don't have a _thing_ , but that balance _is_ your thing. Sometimes we need someone who can be all of these things at once.”

What was Lance supposed to do with that? There was only one option: Sob pathetically and make grabby hands at Hunk until they were all locked into another group hug.

“You guys are super great, too, and the smartest people I know and I'm very proud of you, you know that, right?” There was some more sniffing and sobbing and a watery 'well duh' from Pidge involved and it took them some time to calm down again.

“Still not convinced Keith and Shiro see me like that, too, though.” Lance mumbled as he ineffectively dabbed at his still wet cheeks with his sleeve. Too late he remembered that Pidge had kind of blown her nose into that one at some point. With a grossed-out yelp he pulled up the collar of his shirt and switched to the inside for some rigorous rubbing. He ignored Pidge's snickering with dignity. “Also, you guys ruined my skin care regimen.”

“I guess that means you'll just have to get all the mushy, sobby feelings talks out of the way today so you don't miss another day. Wouldn't want your precious face to get pimply and gross.”

That lead to another highly productive pinching war that convinced Lance that Pidge should be wearing mittens at all times because she was _evil_ and her nimble fingers were too dangerous to be left out in the open. They only stopped because Hunk put them in a gentle headlock each and dragged them with him down to the dining hall.

“Breakfast, then more feelings talks. All that crying and worrying has made me extra hungry.”

Pidge and Lance gathered their dignity just in time to walk through the door to the dining room on their own. Lance immediately wished he was still half-covered by Hunk's arm because _of course_ everyone else was already sitting at the table, staring at them the moment they walked in. And while he generally wanted to avoid Keith and Shiro as hard as he could at the moment, he especially didn't want them to see him with puffy red cheeks and barely dried tear tracks on his face.

“Lance!” Shiro was already half out of his chair. “Are you okay? We were worried about you when you disappeared on us like that.”

That spot on the floor right there. Really interesting. Was he imagining things or was it a tenth of a shade lighter than the rest of the dining hall floor? Must have been a slip-up when they built the castle. Real sloppy craftsmanship.

Keith's resonating groan tore his eyes away from the super interesting spot on the floor. “Are you actually kidding me? You've had us worried _sick_ , the least you can do is talk right now. For all we knew that thing could have eaten you.”

Ah yes, and there they went again. “Noodle is _not_ an it, I'm not saying it again! And she'd never eat me! Unlike you, she actually appreciates me and doesn't hate being around me!” Lance turned on his heel and made to leave through the door, yet again, suddenly very much not hungry anymore. This time, Pidge caught him by the waist and forced him to turn back around though. Which was a very good thing because otherwise he would have missed the expression on Keith's face, that quite frankly looked like he'd been punched in the stomach by Zendak.

“I don't hate being around you! Why- what even-” Keith was stumbling over his words, gaping like a fish as he was trying to think of what to say and it was unfairly adorable. Lance could feel the anger melting right out of him and it annoyed him to no end.

“You three clearly have some things to talk about. We will leave you alone now.” Allura gracefully rose from her chair, giving all of them stern looks. “We will not interfere, however, if any of you leave before you have cleared this up and said what needs to be said, we will be forced to lock you in next time and stand guard.” There was a hint of a mean smirk in the corner of her mouth. It scared the shit out of Lance and also made him a thousand percent sure that she would follow through on that threat.

“Maybe I should take Noodle?” Hunk offered, gently holding his hands up next to Lance's head. Shiro reacted before Lance or Noodle could. “No. If it's okay with her she should stay. Her presence has been what started the argument, after all.”

“I swear to God,” Pidge mumbled under her breath, just barely in Lance's earshot. “If he questions her about her intentions towards Lance...”

Thankfully, Coran chose that moment to usher her out with a barely suppressed grin, the rest of them following and leaving Noodle curled up on Lance's head. Less thankfully, it was too late for Lance to unhear the comment and of course he went bright red.

To cover up his embarrassment, he crossed his arms and lifted his chin in challenge. “So? Let's hear it. What do you have to say to Noodle's face?”

Shiro actually cleared his throat like the doofus he was, gently pushing Keith back down into his chair before he started talking. “Um... Noodle. I am sorry if we have insulted you yesterday. Previous experience has made us wary, and we are just concerned about Lance's safety. Please don't take it personally.” Shiro's eyes unfocused a little for the blink of an eye, a small smile stretching across his face as they came back to the present. “Thank you. The sentiment is mutual, it seems.”

Keith made a noise of protest that just told Lance that whatever he planned on saying next, it would definitely make Lance infuriatingly mad. Noodle was smart enough to stop him right there, lifting out of Lance's by now unruly-again hair to give Keith a Look. Lance would maintain to his dying day that the nudge she gave him translated to 'Hand me to the angry mullet-child'.

Lance carefully made his way over, gently gathering Noodle in his hands. He was anything but convinced of the wisdom of that particular decision. His mind was playing a scene à la original Frog Prince and he wasn't sure at all that Noodle would survive Keith throwing her against a wall with all he had. Noodle sent him soothing vibes, and it did help to calm him down a little. She had seen more than enough of Keith in his mind, after all, it wasn't like she was going in with no idea what to expect. Lance would just have to hope for the best. Or maybe Shiro's quick reflexes.

When Lance finally arrived next to Keith, the funeral dirge already playing in his head, he grumbled but took Noodle with surprisingly gentle hands from Lance. They were very nice hands, when they weren't covered in emo biker gloves or trying to punch Lance in the face for being a jackass. Not that Lance had ever taken any particular amount of time to notice this, no sir.

Keith held up Noodle to about eye-height and actually closed his eyes like the utter dork he actually was. They shot open after a few seconds, going from Noodle to Lance, wide and way too pretty for Lance's sanity.

“Oh.” Keith didn't say anything else for a while, looking at Noodle with new understanding before gently holding her out so she could slither back up on Lance's shoulder. “I see.” Lance would have paid a lot of money to know just what Noodle had showed him but she was being a killjoy and refused to tell him. And Keith had apparently returned to sparse monosyllables, so there was probably not much point in asking him.

“Now that that part is cleared up.” Shiro dropped his hand on Lance's shoulder. Lance got the distinct impression it was a gesture of support as much as it was to keep him from running again. “We should also make sure we never have the rest of yesterday's misunderstandings ever again. You are a valuable member of this team, Lance. You are important and we need you and in no way was either of us thinking that you are incompetent or naïve.”

Lance was fighting to battle down the tears again when Keith, in his usual charming ways, took care of that for him. “I _did_ think it was terribly naïve to let an alien we know _nothing_ about sleep in your room on the first night.”

Just as Lance was taking a breath to give a properly riled-up retort, Keith started talking again. “ _But_ I don't think you're incompetent or need to be watched all the time. I- I admit that maybe I'm a bit paranoid sometimes. _Maybe_. And that I shouldn't have gone at you like that at dinner, but I was worried, okay? What if Noodle can grow five feet and has fangs the size of your head, what could we have done if she'd decided to eat you in the middle of the night?”

Lance just smiled at him serenely, reveling in how freaked out Keith looked the longer Lance didn't talk. “What?”

“You called her Noodle, and she.”Keith's smile softened and for the first time a tiny spark in Lance actually kinda believed what Pidge and Hunk had told him earlier.

Shiro's hand, still resting on his shoulder, hesitantly moved up to the back of his neck, squeezing softly. That was definitely the human hand. “So, are we okay?”

Lance couldn't help but smile at how adorably hopeful Shiro looked. “We're okay.”

“Wait.” Keith leaned back against the table, arms crossed. “I don't think we're quite done with this yet. I want to know what in the world gave you the impression that we don't think of you as an equal member of this team in the first place. So it never happens again.”

Lance opened his mouth to comment on the rare moment of emotional intelligence and foresight...

 

… and was interrupted by the piercing sound of the castle's alarm system blaring at them.


	3. How Sharpshooter saves the day

**How Sharpshooter saves the day**

“We're coming back to this,” Shiro yelled over the noise, his hand leaving Lance's neck with a last reassuring squeeze. Lance missed its heat almost immediately. Keith actually grabbed Lance by the elbow to drag him to the command center and woah. Since when was that a thing? Keith 'I Avoid Human Contact Like The Plague (Unless Your Name Rhymes With Hero)', grabbing him, Lance, by anything? For a purpose that was not shoving him out of the way of an incoming Galra soldier? Unheard of. There were only two possible solutions for this puzzle. A) Keith had been replaced by a pod person/shapeshifting alien infiltrator or B) Hunk and Pidge really did have a point there. Lance would definitely be on the lookout for soulful, longing glances from now on.

In the meantime, he let himself be pulled along, quietly enjoying the thrill of Keith's hand around his arm. Noodle seemed to be very amused at his expense. Whatever, Lance would like to see her fare better in his shoes. Which made him wonder about Noodle's home and if there was anyone left waiting for her there. Noodle sent him a complex mixture of uncertainty and worry and grief and fear, so Lance decided not to poke his nose in further for the time being. Not that they actually had the time to discuss Noodle's home even if it hadn't made her so incredibly sad, as they were just coming around the last corner to the command center.

The entire room was bathed in flashing red lights and Coran and Allura looked very serious indeed. So no practice drill, probably. Not that Lance had thought Allura would have interrupted their talk like that but hope dies last, huh?

“Paladins,” she started when Hunk and Pidge came bursting into the room right behind them. “I am sorry I had to interrupt your talk, but we just received a very urgent distress signal. The Accropians are celebrating the coronation of their new leader today and they have received a warning that there are plans to assassinate them. The leader-to-be sympathizes with our cause and wants to help protect their civilization and the rest of the universe from the Galra empire. The next in line is pro-Galra and convinced that a profitable understanding can be reached with the empire. If they claim the throne it would be a political disaster and might mean the end of the Accropians.”

“In short, we need to get to the ceremony as soon as possible and protect the leader-to-be. Preferably also uncover the rebellion network that works with the next-in-line so they don't just kill him once we turn our backs.” Coran twirled the end of his mustache. “I must say, this is exciting! It's been a while since I was part of a plot to stop the hostile overtaking of a foreign government!”

“So we're basically gonna be like a cross between spies and bodyguards?” Lance bounced on the toes of his feet, only stopping the motion when Noodle hissed at him and almost slid down his face. “I always wanted to be a spy!”

“Lance.” Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose with his human hand. “Is now really the time?”

“I would think there is no better time!” Coran said with a broad grin, twirling around Lance. “How many times will we get to protect local royalty and uncover a network of assassins and saboteurs?”

They grinned at each other like two especially deranged Cheshire cats. Allura smiled at them indulgently.

“As long as you get it all out now and are professional and representative of the diplomatic force that is Voltron while interacting with the Accropians, I suppose there is no harm in a little excitement.” She straightened up and returned to her best regal expression of command. “However, we are on a tight schedule. The main preparations for the festivities will soon begin and we should discuss our strategy with the new leader's protection detail as soon as possible.”

“Of course, Princess!” Coran twirled Lance once before skipping over to his control panel. “We're on course for Accropia without further delay! I have sent a message to the senders of the distress signal.”

“Everybody else, in your armor. Should we arrive with the castle or take our lions, Allura?” Shiro asked, a watchful eye on the others getting into their armors. Of course he was already in his, because Shiro had no chill and Lance wasn't actually sure he owned more than one change of regular clothing. And that one regular outfit of course happened to look like a uniform, too. Lance couldn't believe he'd almost had a serious feelings talk with him and Keith while the dork was in his paladin armor, of all things. At breakfast. Who did that? Lance quickly busied himself with his own armor when Shiro sent him a glance, one eyebrow up, as if he knew exactly what Lance had been thinking. There was silent snickering coming from Keith's corner. Douche.

“I think it would be best if you took the lions. Landing the castle on Accropia will hardly be inconspicuous, so the assassins will notice our arrival, anyway. Let's show them what they are dealing with right from the start.”

That got a vicious grin out of Pidge that honestly froze the blood in Lance's veins a little. Good thing she was on their side, she was a force to be reckoned with. Lance was just about to hop onto his zipline when Allura called him back.

“I don't think it would be wise to take Noodle with you, Lance. She would be safer here in the castle in general, but given the nature of this mission it is especially inadvisable to bring her with you.” Noodle honest to God hissed at Allura and made absolutely no move to leave his head when Lance held up his hands for her to climb on.

“Oh come on, Noodle, she has a point! Can't go assassin-hunting with a glowing target on my head. And how would you fit under my helmet? It's safer here.” Noodle sent him some very offended vibes, followed by intense worry. “Okay, okay, you can take care of yourself, I get it. But it would make me feel better if you stayed here, we only freed you from a Galra prison where they _starved_ you yesterday. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine.” If Noodle could form words her next nudge would have translated to 'Famous last words'. Lance didn't need that kind of sarcasm in his life.

Either way, while Noodle still didn't seem happy about it, she finally let Lance coop her up and gently put her down on his seat by the blue control panel.

“Bye, beautiful! Be good while I'm gone!” Lance left her with a wave, catching the fond, warm look Shiro was giving him out of the corner of his eye as he turned. He quickly looked over to Keith and thought he'd caught a similar look on his face just as Keith demonstratively turned his head away to fiddle around with his zipline. Lance grinned to himself when he noticed just how aimless his fumbling was. Keith didn't _do_ purpose-free just-need-something-for-my-hands-to-do. Unless he was embarrassed and trying to hide it.

Further evidence for Pidge's hypothesis. And hush, yes, he knew what that meant. He maintained that it wasn't English, though. More like... Scienese? Sciencish? Either way, he had a vague recollection of having read something about the subsets and jargons of language somewhere, so there. Clearly not English-English but the subset of English Technical Jargon vis à vis science. Boom.

And really, prodding Pidge, in that moment, had been more about A) covering up how worried he was for Keith and Allura (and his utter uncertainty who he was actually more jealous of) and B) because sometimes listening to Pidge talk was like proofreading his cousin Jorge's thesis on Nuclear Physics and that was not conductive to normal conversation.

Before Lance's mind could drift off even further he finally arrived in the hanger bay, Blue's amused nudging welcoming him in. It wasn't entirely clear but Lance was pretty sure she agreed with him that Pidge had to speak like a regular, not-super-smart human being occasionally. Variety was the spice of life, after all.

“We're going to leave the hanger bay and land separately as soon as the castle has passed Accropia's atmosphere. Be ready.” Shiro's voice cut through the silence of Blue's cockpit to an echo of varyingly sarcastic rogers. Lance did his best to actually keep his mouth shut for a few minutes, wiggling around in his seat instead. He admitted defeat at the hundred tick mark. “This is so cool.”

There was a moment of nothing but static. “Super cool.” Lance could actually measure Pidge's excitement by the lack of sarcasm in her tone.

“The coolest thing we've done so far.” Aaand Hunk was so nodding along enthusiastically, Lance knew that tone.

“Guys! We have fought Galra. We have fought the _actual Emperor of most of the universe_. We have destroyed entire fleets and giant alien war ships.”

“Your point being, Keith?” Lance absentmindedly patted Blue's cockpit.

“This cannot be the coolest thing we've ever done! We've done at least five way cooler things! We've rescued entire civilizations and restored a planet!”

“To be fair, _Allura_ restored the Balmera.” Pidge's tone was as dry as desert sand.

“Guys! Stop arguing. Keith has a point.” There was a pause in their excited chatter. Shiro's best authoritative tone would do that. “Besides. The coolest thing we've done is clearly that snowball fight we had with the Olkari spores.”

All hell broke loose after that and they only stopped arguing about their top ten coolest missions when Allura informed them that they were about to reach the Accropian atmosphere in that stern tone that killed the very joy in your soul.

There was actual radio silence after that, until they hit the planet surface. They were met with a delegation of colorfully dressed Accropians as soon as they stepped out of their lions. Lance had to blink at them for a bit because it turned out that Accropians were naturally a very violent shade of hot pink. And apparently their festive clothing involved psychedelic patterns in bright turquoise and neon green and vibrant sunflower yellow that flowed over wide robes covering their three arms and five legs. Lance had never wished to be colorblind before in his life, but there was always a first time for everything. Their faces reminded him of hairless baby goats. Lance made a mental note to ask Pidge if the planet's atmosphere was maybe full of hallucinogens because this sure felt like a fever dream.

Allura started greeting them but Lance only half-paid attention, still distracted by the blinding array of colors on the otherwise completely barren planet (if you disregarded the buildings in the distance, the biggest of which was probably the palace). He would have missed his cue to bow in the expected order if Keith hadn't elbowed him (unnecessarily viciously, if you asked Lance) in the ribs. Allura and Shiro sent him almost identical disapproving looks. Well, to be honest Allura's looked more like a glare. Whatever, Lance had totally seen how unnecessarily much Shiro had blinked at the ambassador. Which was understandable, since they were dressed from head to toe in neon green with subtle turquoise shapes. But still.

They thankfully left the barren wasteland of Accropia's surface soon after to gather for a tactical meeting in the minister's office. Lance was incredibly grateful. Being out in the open as the clear antagonist of an underground organization specialized in assassination? Basically painting a giant target on your back. Lance hadn't stopped analyzing sightlines for possible sniper outposts since they touched ground and the endless possibilities in the rocky open had been driving him mad. Keith had actually caught him during one of his (very subtle, thank you very much) checks – probably because he was a precious ball of limitless paranoia himself. To Lance's astonishment, the only reaction had been the softest smile Keith had ever given him in living memory. Lance might have blushed a little and there certainly had been some butterflies trapped somewhere in his gut region. He should have Coran look at that once they were back at the castle. Going all mushy over shared paranoia was not the way Lance wanted his first relationship to go.

Then again, as Lance had tried very hard not to look at Keith he'd caught the small, affectionate smile hiding in the corners of Shiro's delectable mouth, as he had very clearly snuck a glance at the two of them. So maybe Pidge and Hunk were right. Which meant his first relationship would probably end up being a polyamorous triangle with his former idol and his former rival. While they were out in space. Saving the universe by fighting an evil, apparently immortal dick face emperor in robot lions that were basically parts of a Transformers set-up. Guess there was no normal to be had here.

He'd definitely take the weird dynamic of the triangle over the rest of it, even if they weren't trapped in space. If that was indeed going to be a thing that would be happening.

But. Back to the point at hand, which was a strategy meeting, because they were meant to save the leader-to-be, which meant Lance should probably be focusing right now.

“These are the hideouts we think the rebellion is most likely to choose,” the head of state security said, pointing one of his hands to several encircled points on the map projected over the table, the other two busy typing down Allura and Shiro's suggested additional security measures on a tablet-y thing. The vibrant yellow of his robe was almost soothing to the eye compared to the minister's, so thankfully it was relatively easy to focus on him. “They all have direct sightlines to different spots of the parade's planned path that would potentially allow them to get in a hit on our leader through their personal security escort.”

The map changed to a more 3D, topographical view of the landscape the marks had been made in. “I heard you have a sharpshooter among you? We would like their expertise, walk the planned path of the parade with them to see if they spot any possible hideouts and vantage points we missed.”

Lance took a step forward, chest out because _finally_ , his reputation had preceded him and someone was asking for his _expertise._ This was a very beautiful day indeed and the Accropians were his new favorite alien people, even if they were painful to the eye.

And then his mellow was harshed by Keith's outstretched hand keeping him in place, a scowl on his face that had Lance impressed none of the Accropian delegation were flinching back. “He's not going anywhere _near_ the parade path. For all we know, the assassins have already set up. We've obviously allied ourselves with you, they will know that we are here to stop them. Letting Lance walk down there without even the security escort or the crowds for some cover would be drawing a giant target on his head.”

The head of security – Muu'ar, Lance was pretty sure that's what their name was – gave Keith the most unimpressed look Lance had ever seen on a pink baby goat face. “Of course we are not risking our most valuable resource in this endeavor, young paladin. Your teammate will be fine. I was suggesting a walk through the virtual model of the parade path and its surroundings, including a simulated crowd and security escort. The open field would not bring forth a realistic analysis of the situation and therefore would be useless to us.”

Before Lance could swat away Keith's hand and give him the offended “See??” that was burning on the tip of his tongue, Shiro had turned to Muu'ar. “Where do you see us stationed during the event? Would any of us be in the parade itself?”

Muu'ar shifted his many legs round, his currently free hand twitching a little. “Well. While we would like to send most of you out into the surrounding hills and rock outcrops to check out those suspected hideouts and hopefully overcome the assassins before anything can happen... We would ask that your sharpshooter be part of the security escort, as they would likely be more perceptive of possible signs of an impending hit and might be able to prevent the worst from happening if we can't stop the rebels in time.”

This time, Lance was faster, slapping his hand over Keith's mouth before he could start to actually growl like a mama lion having its cub threatened. “What do you mean, possible signs of an impending hit? Why do you think I would be able to prevent them from succeeding after they already took aim?”

More five-legged shifting, which actually resulted in a pretty cool-looking wave motion. “For all our technological advancements in other areas... The Accropians have never favored long-range weapons. Our eyesight is usually not very good at long distances, so the few rifles appropriate for sniping we produced have certain... assisting features...”

Lance actually let go of Keith at that, too busy bouncing on his toes and gesticulating broadly. “Don't tell me you actually have laser sights! Aiming aids with actual little red laser dots?? Oh, oh this is good. This is the best news I've heard all day. Actual red laser dot cross hairs. Yes, sign me up, I so want to be down there for this.”

“Lance-” Shiro started, narrowing his eyes in his Impending-Lecture-Stare™, only to be interrupted by Muu'ar.

“Actually, the dots might not be as small as you imagine.” They waved one of their hands and the rock outcrops became a picture of a cherry-sized red dot on a white background. “The difficulty is more that it is very hard to distinguish on Accropian skin.” Another wave of his hand and the dot almost vanished on a plane of hot pink, rough skin. Almost. Lance could made it out clearly enough, he was pretty confident he could catch this quickly enough to shove the leader out of the way if need be.

“I can do it. It's a slight difference but noticeable enough, now that I know what I'm looking for. I should be able to catch one of those on the leader in a pinch.”

Muu'ar offered him a surprisingly toothy grin. Who knew goat heads could contain shark teeth? “Excellent. We are very grateful for your assistance, blue paladin-”

“No.” Shiro actually held out his Galra arm to stop Muu'ar in their tracks. “Keith is right, we'd be drawing a giant target on any of our heads by being part of the parade. Lance, I can't let you go down there on your own.”

For the first time in his life, Lance couldn't resist the urge to roll his eyes at Shiro. “Shiro, calm down. Actually, both of you calm down.” He made a 'down boy' gesture to emphasize his point because Keith was at this point literally faintly vibrating with what Lance assumed was barely-suppressed rage. “You don't think a red dot of that size would be, I don't know, _extremely_ easy to notice on me.” He did a quick spin, gesturing down his armor. “If the Accropians can trust me to pick up on any red dots on their leader, I'm pretty sure I can be trusted to notice one on myself.” He held up a hand when Keith opened his mouth to argue. “Aaaand before you start arguing with that, I wouldn't be alone down there, I'd be part of the escort. Having a paladin of Voltron die during their pro-Voltron leader's coronation is not in their interest, I'm sure. So I take it that if a big red laser dot shows up on the back of my head, someone will let me know.”

Muu'ar nodded earnestly. He did a weird gesture with his third hand – and wow, for the first time Lance noticed that they actually had eight, apparently veeeery flexible, fingers on each hand. Allura seemed appeased by that gesture, however, so Lance assumed it probably meant something like 'I promise we won't let our evil assassin problem shoot off the head of the blue paladin'.

Everyone else seemed to take this at face value. Well, almost everyone else. Shiro still didn't look convinced and Keith still looked like he was about to bite off Muu'ar's head for even suggesting Lance go anywhere near the dangerous parade. It was very obnoxious and annoying and maybe a little bit charming. Maybe.

“I am going with him, then.” Every head in the room turned toward Keith. “What? You said it yourself, you can't let him go on his own. And the escort will be busy watching their leader, their priority. We should have someone down there whose priority is that Lance doesn't get his head blown off. And we don't know if they haven't changed plans since our arrival, maybe they will have someone attacking directly from the crowd. Lance is shit at close combat.”

“Hey!”

“Hmm..” Muu'ar scratched their chin. And their cheek. And the top of their head. “The rest of you would be able to cover less ground, but if it would make you feel better...”

“Oh, don't worry about that,” Pidge said with a flippant wave of her hand. “I've made sooo much progress with adapting the Galra drone tech, I can easily replace Keith with a few second generation Rovers.”

“Hey!”

 

 

 

So that's what they did. Muu'ar and the rest of the delegation led them through the simulations, Pidge got her terrifying army of tiny floating robots ready and Hunk discovered the banquet that was supposed to be for after the parade, followed by the discovery that Accropian food did not agree with human stomachs. The Accropians quickly stuffed him into something that looked like a more advanced version of the castle's healing pods. About half a minute later it spit out a very excited Hunk who started talking schematics with the head medical engineer and got Coran on the comms for better comparison between the systems. In the meantime, Lance tried not to get too pissed off at Keith following at his heels like a very persistent guard puppy and the nay-constant feeling of Shiro's eyes on him.

He did draw the line when Keith tried to follow him into the bathroom _stall_. There were lines you just didn't cross and just because Accropian bathroom stalls were pretty generous in size, considering they usually had to fit people with five legs, didn't mean he wanted to have Keith watch over his shoulder as he peed. That was definitely not the kind of first contact he wanted Keith to have with his dick.

The only reason Lance didn't explode into screaming frustration was the start of the actual parade. As soon as they fell into place toward the end of the security escort, Keith turned on professional mode, which meant his guard dog ways became a lot more subtle and he actually let Lance have something like a personal bubble again.

The actual parade was a lot less fun than Lance would have hoped. Then again he also spent it concentrating very hard on the back of the leader's head and very occasionally checking possible vantage points for sniper nests. In fact, he concentrated so hard on those two things and drowning out the screaming and cheering from the crowds that he almost missed it when a cherry-sized red dot landed somewhere else entirely. He had to give it to them, it was a genius camouflage job.

If Lance had had Accropian eyesight, or if he hadn't turned his head to see how Keith was doing in that exact moment, or if he had been less familiar with the exact shade of red of Keith's paladin armor he probably would have missed it.

His brain had a millisecond to calculate that a shove would not be enough, a shove would still end in possibly fatal injury. Lance knew exactly which of the possible nests this was coming from, knew the angle and trajectory. It was genius placement for a shot, compensating perfectly for the sniper's shortcomings.

So Lance tackled instead, the cheering from the still oblivious crowd and the smell of his own blood the last things he noticed before the pain pulled him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I apologize? I should probably apologize. I have considered different options for the next chapter, since sticking with Lance's POV would mean you poor souls would miss all the chaos ensuing after this. I have settled on something and already started writing the first few paragraphs, so I present to you: Coming next chapter, Hunk's POV! Cross your fingers that I won't mess it up somehow.
> 
> On a slightly different note, I've considered reactivating my good old writing tag on tumblr. Which would mean, if anybody would be interested, updates on where I'm at in-between chapters and maybe snippets, if you'd want them. So if you'd care for that at all, just tell me in the comments and I'll post the link to the tag with the next chapter.


	4. The Heart of Voltron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone ask for me to validate more of the characters? No? Whoopsie daisy, because that's kinda what happened here.  
> Please let me know if my experiment in venturing into Hunk's POV turned out okay. I tried very valiantly, so if you feel the need to yell at me for any part of this, please yell constructive criticism? Or praise, if you feel it's deserved. I will also take praise.

**The Heart of Voltron**

_Oh no. Oh god no. So much blood. Too much blood. That can't be good. Okay. Okay, don't throw up. Focus. Best friend bleeding out in the middle of a parade that turned into screaming chaos_.

Shiro was yelling something about getting Lance to the castle in his ears. Keith was cradling Lance in his arms, again, and poking everything that came within three feet of him and Lance with his bayard.

Maybe this time someone would have photo evidence. But no time for that now.

Something was wrong with what Shiro was suggesting. But what? Hunk forced himself to look back down at the puddle of red spreading around Lance and Keith. They didn't have time to get Lance back to the castle. Besides, between him, Coran and Aal'hid they had figured out that the Accropian healing pods were much more efficient and faster.

That's it!

“Shiro, Shiro listen up, we need to get him to Aal'hid and the Accropian healing pods! We don't have time to get him to the castle and our pod is too slow. Keith, are you hearing this?”

Hunk was making his way down from the outcrop he had been investigating when they had heard Lance's pained, wet gasp over the comms, sliding down more than running and causing small avalanches in his path. Thankfully, he'd been close to the parade's position when it happened, so all he had to do was elbow his way through the panicking Accropians at a run as soon as his boots hit the ground. He was there in less than three minutes. The puddle around Lance had spread a worrying amount in that time. All that kept Hunk's stomach down was cold adrenaline at that point. Keith was still cradling Lance and whispering panicked nonsense to him and generally not helping.

“Keith. Keith, man, listen to me. You need to let go of Lance. No offense, but I don't think you can carry him all the way to the pods as fast as we need to move. Especially not when you're like this. Can I pick him up without getting stabbed?”

Hunk bent down carefully and very, very slowly approached Keith like a wild animal with an injured young, the way his grandfather had taught him to. At least Keith didn't growl at him, so there was still some of his rational mind on board, probably.

In fact, he just went completely slack when Hunk very gently slipped Lance out of his arms and into his own. There was a lot of slippery, dark, warm liquid on his arms now. Hunk was decidedly Not Thinking About That. Did he mention how much he hated blood? The smell blocked out everything else and Hunk swallowed hard, trying to breathe through his mouth instead.

Keith still wasn't moving and Hunk was starting to get worried, but he also didn't really have the time to take care of Keith right now. The bleeding best friend was the priority for now. Besides, Hunk could see Shiro elbowing his way through the panicked Accropians in the distance, a desperation in his relentless shoving that Hunk had never seen in him before. At this rate, Shiro would make it to their position before Hunk had even started carrying Lance away to safety, and Hunk really wasn't looking forward to a tug-of-war with Shiro. So he turned on his heel and marched off in the direction of the Accropian main medical bay, trusting his friends to follow him eventually.

He hadn't even made it more than a few feet when Shiro rushed onto the scene, kneeling down next to Keith immediately, seemingly heedless of the blood. Could have fooled Hunk, if not for the very uncharacteristic flinch of his hand on Keith's shoulder when it started to soak through the armor. There was a lot of red on the white and yellow of Hunk's own armor, too. Did the Alteans have something to get the bloodstains out with? Hunk really hoped so because he definitely did not need the faded remnants of Lance so close to death, _again,_ reminding him of this moment for the foreseeable future. It was burned into his mind as it was, the almost negligible weight of Lance unconscious in his arms something that would make his muscles feel heavy with memory for weeks to come. The way his hands had felt stained and wrong every time he'd been around Lance for so long after the Deep Sea Horror had made him try to hurt his best friend. His bro. The one person he relied on more than anything out here, in space, where everything else he had known, had grown up with, was so many light years away it didn't even bear contemplating. Lance was his constant, his anchor, for all that he didn't know how to sit still or shut his mouth for more than two minutes. And nothing and no one was to ever harm a hair on his head if Hunk could help it, not even himself while mind-whammied.

It had taken a stern talking-to from Pidge about how lost and under-hugged Lance had looked after two weeks of this for Hunk to forgive himself enough to be able to be around Lance again without making it weird. Lance had had been gracious enough not to notice it, even though Hunk was sure that he'd known what that strange avoidance had been about. People tended to underestimate just how perceptive and emphatic Lance could be, if he was actually paying attention.

Apropos Pidge, Hunk hadn't heard so much as a single noise from her since Lance had been shot. That was most likely not a good sign, especially since Shiro and Keith seemed to be too busy trying to keep each other in the here and now to make sure she was alright, too.

“Pidge? Pidge, are you alright? Haven't heard from you in a bit.”

There was only static for a few panic-filled moments. Hunk's mind took the opportunity to present him with several scenarios in which Pidge had also gotten shot or stabbed or worse and was bleeding out or just generally dying somewhere far away from them, alone, while they had been distracted by Lance. Maybe the rebellion had found her and kidnapped her? But no, Pidge was too smart for her own good, if they had she'd already have managed to contact them through one of the new Rovers by now.

The one upside to the additional panicking was that it was making him walk even faster, though. The building containing the medical bay was almost in sight now, and this time he didn't have to elbow his way through because even in their mindless panic and confusion the Accropians took one look at the big human in the paladin armor covered in blood and carrying his very obviously gravely injured team mate and parted for him.

Finally, shortly before he reached the doors where Aal'hid, who thankfully had an excellent and very calm mind on their shoulders, was already waiting for them, the staticky screeching changed.

“Don't worry, big guy, just uncovered and dismantled a rebellion network with Allura and Coran while you were busy trying to make sure Lance doesn't die on us, _again_. Is he okay? Have you gotten him to the Accropian healing pods yet? How bad is it?” She sounded a little out of breath but other than that fine. Hunk would definitely press for more details on that one later, preferably once Lance was conscious again and could groan and complain about missing all the really cool action. At this point, Hunk would give a lot to be complained at by Lance.

“You've _gotta_ tell me more about this once we've sorted through this mess. Is that why we haven't heard from Allura and Coran since Lance got hit, too? I'm almost at the healing pods now, Lance doesn't look too good but he should make it. He's definitely still breathing, at least. What about you? Are you injured anywhere? Should I ask Aal'hid to get a pod for you ready, too, as soon as Lance is taken care of?”

“Nah, I'm fine. Please, Hunk, I'm not an amateur who couldn't even remember that the best way to get someone out of the line of fire at short notice without getting covered in holes yourself is to dropkick them. Not a scratch on me. And yeah, Allura and Coran just listened in on you guys for long enough to see that you got it under control and then switched to a private link with me to guide me through. Well, Allura actually crawled down that one tunnel with me and ended up kicking a lot of ass... But you know, story for another time. When Lance can pout at me for having missed all the _really_ cool action while he unnecessarily played damsel in distress.”

“ _Under control?!?!_ ” The only thing keeping Hunk from starting to laugh hysterically was the fact that he couldn't afford to jostle Lance that much, especially not as he had finally reached Aal'hid and had to keep his gait even enough that they could already start on the check-up as they power-walked toward the healing pod in the very corner, the one Hunk didn't have time to get a good look at earlier. “I think you're underestimating just how much things are _not_ under control around here, Pidge. My best friend got shot and is bleeding all over me and I think his breathing has gotten a lot shallower since I picked him up. Shiro and Keith are still holed up somewhere in the middle of the parade chaos because I didn't have time to drag them with me or make sure they're okay.” A cold shiver of dread ran down his spine. “Oh god, please tell me they're okay. They're okay, right? You and Allura and Coran took care of the other assassins and they haven't been shot down, too, right? I just left them sitting there and that would explain why they're not glued to my side already...”

“Hunk. Hunk, deep breaths. Lance will be fine, I can hear Aal'hid programming the pod in the background. There is nothing you could have done about Shiro and Keith, Keith is still in shock and Shiro barely has it together enough to keep them both from getting bowled over by hysterical Accropians. Allura and Coran are currently trying to talk them through the worst of it so we can guide them to a safer space and I have several Rovers on guard around them. Getting Lance to somewhere he _wouldn't bleed out_ was the priority here and you handled that really well. I didn't hear you throw up once despite all the blood!”

Unfortunately, that was the moment Hunk could finally hand Lance very, very gently over to Aal'hid to be placed in the pod – which didn't open like the castle pods or the other regular pods Hunk had analyzed earlier but instead its doors peeled open like flower petals all Olkari style and he so had to show Pidge that later, she would _freak._ Anyway, now that he knew everyone was more or less safe and they hadn't failed their mission and he didn't have Lance's uneven, shallow breathing to concentrate on the cold adrenaline stopped being his friend and Lance's new second-in-line for the time being became the flower vase standing on a table next to the petal-pod.

When Hunk could concentrateon something that wasn't throwing up the nothing that had been in his stomach since he'd thrown up earlier there was another staticky screech before the comm link was back on. “And just when I was so proud of you. Still, you pulled through really well, Hunk. Don't know how long it would have taken to get Lance to the pods if you hadn't kept a clear enough head to get him there.”

“Your friend is right, Yellow Paladin,” Aal'hid said from where they were checking the vitals on the pod over. Oh yeah, right, Hunk had almost forgotten that Accropians had freakishly good hearing. “The blue paladin was injured very severely. Another few minutes and even the pods wouldn't have been able to safe him, the shot grazed an artery and I think the lungs were damaged, too. It's hard to tell, I'm no expert on human biology. But blood in the airways of any species is usually a bad sign, so I'm just going to assume here.”

Hunk took a shaky breath, sliding down the wall next to the pod when his legs didn't feel like carrying him any more. “Oh god.”

“Don't worry about it now, Yellow Paladin.” Aal'hid handed him a cold, wet rag and motioned for him to hold it to his forehead. Hunk did so mostly on autopilot. It did help a little. “Your friend will be fine now. This is our most advanced pod, I have seen many an Accropian, and occasionally even other races, step out of it perfectly fine after much more critical injuries. Your friend wasn't even that badly off when you arrived because you carried him so swiftly and valiantly.” Even with their huge shark teeth Aal' hid's smile managed to look reassuring.

“Yeah, I used to do that a lot.” Hunk dragged the rag down his face and instantly felt a lot more human, the soothing beeping of the pod a constant reminder that Lance would be fine. Hunk was actually pretty sure that the highly advanced Accropian pods did not need to constantly beep to let you know that, so chances were Aal'hid had turned on that particular feature for Hunk's ease of mind. He was beyond grateful. “Not with humans, but my grandfather used to be the game keeper on his island. He was the head of the hunters and made sure no animal was hunted or injured beyond what was needed, and he nursed those back to health that had been injured by accidents or storms. He taught me how to carry a wounded, panicking animal when I was a kid. An unconscious Lance was easy after that.”

“You have a big heart, Yellow Paladin. Neither it nor your friends' sacrifices and role in keeping our planet safe will be forgotten by the Accropians.” Aal'hid walked back over to check on the pod again. “The blue paladin should be fine to leave the pod by dinner time, though I would advise you and your friends to abstain from the festive banquet for today. It might be better to have a quiet meal here in the medical bay tonight and to enjoy the celebrations in your honor when you are better rested.”

That sounded an awful lot like Aal'hid would maybe let them stay in the medical bay. Which would be good, because Hunk was not leaving here until Lance was fine and back with them and he didn't even want to imagine what trying to get Keith away from Lance would look like once they'd have him in here. Shiro was definitely too frazzled himself to be of much help with that and Pidge's solution would probably be to tazer them with her bayard and drag them out by the ear, so yeah. Maybe they should try to avoid that.

Just as Hunk was starting to worry again about how no one else had made it to the medical bay yet the door burst open and a frantic Keith stormed in ahead of the entire group minus Coran, almost bowling over Aal'hid in his haste to get to the pod. Well, at least he seemed to have gotten out of the apathetic state of shock for now. Pidge threw Hunk a quick smile before she started bombarding Aal' hid with questions about the pod, Allura and one of the Rovers joining her after a brief look at what they could see of Lance in the pod around Keith. There was a green blinking light on that Rover, so Hunk assumed it had a direct video link to Coran back in the castle. Shiro just took one look at where Hunk was still huddled into his wall and slid down next to him with the sigh of a man who had seen far too much in his short years. The rings under his eyes looked like they had gotten ten times worse since they'd arrived on Accropia this morning.

“How is he?” He cast a quick look at the pod and at Keith, whose face was pressed so close it looked like he was trying to force his head through the material to join Lance to make extra-sure he was going to be okay.

“Apparently, we were just in time, but Aal'hid said he should be fine and good to go by dinner time. I think they offered us a quiet dinner here in the med bay.”

The relief on Shiro's face was almost palpable. “Oh thank goodness, I don't think I could have handled an official banquet today.” He assessed the rest of the team with a practiced gaze. “I don't think any of us could have, not even Allura.” He turned back to Hunk and the look of utter defeat and disappointment on his face made Hunk want to hug him to his chest and cover him in blankets. Maybe offer him a mug of cocoa. “ _Thank you_ , Hunk. If you hadn't come through... I don't know what we would have done. If it really was that close... I'm not sure I could have pulled myself together in time. It was-” He inhaled sharply, a faint trembling running through his frame. Wordlessly, Hunk handed him the wet rag. It wasn't particularly cold any more, but it seemed to be doing the trick for now. “It was just so horrible to see him lie there, and the blood, and Keith was absolutely beside himself-”

“Man, you don't have to explain yourself.” Hunk rested a hesitant hand on Shiro's shoulder. “We all freaked out, we just have different ways of handling it. It wasn't like the last time, with the bomb, this felt... more real. You could literally see him bleed out in front of us. It's okay not to know how to handle that. You're our leader, but you're also not that much older than us and you don't always have to be able to handle everything on your own. Lance would be the first to tell you that.”

Shiro leaned into him, absentmindedly patting the hand on his shoulder. “I know that, I think. Usually. But I can't stop thinking... If it had been you or Pidge or Allura or Coran I might have been able to get it together better. Faster. But with Lance, or Keith, I just...”

He didn't continue, his weight now pressed almost entirely into Hunk's side. So Hunk thought to hell with team structures and leadership and just curled an arm around Shiro to pull him further in. Shiro more or less went limp at his side, so it seemed like the right decision. If anyone needed a hug right now – and wouldn't scratch your eyes out for trying – it was Shiro. And maybe Hunk had needed one just a little, too. Shiro being Shiro seemed to sense that through his own despair and wound an arm around Hunk's back.

“It's okay, man. It's different for you guys. Doesn't mean that's a bad thing. You still have the rest of us to make sure things work out.”

Shiro snorted into his shoulder. “Not always. We do get separated or have to split up every so often. And we can't always make sure we have you or Pidge with us. We can't afford to freeze up like this.” He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose with his galra hand, right above the scar. “We're compromised. I should have seen the mistake in that plan, should have figured that a red dot, even at that size, would be almost invisible on Keith's armor, would put him at risk. I should have figured Lance would do something stupid and heroic to prevent that. But I was just so worried when the Accropians suggested putting Lance in with the security detail, and too relieved when Keith offered to stay close to him and keep him safe. It didn't even cross my mind. I could have gotten both of them killed.”

“No, dude, don't think like that. This is on all of us. No one in that room thought of that, not even the Accropians, and they weren't compromised or whatever you want to call it. Sure, they probably had a lot on their mind what with a rebellion network trying to assassinate their leader and sell them out to the galra, but they also had the most strategic and tactical experience. That's just the human, or, uh, sapient? factor. People make mistakes and you can't beat yourself up over it forever. Maybe just talk about it with Keith and Lance and try to come up with an emergency strategy, just in case this ever happens again?”

“Thanks.” Shiro's hand squeezed briefly around Hunk's waist. “That helped a lot. Maybe I should make you my second-in-command, huh?”

“Oh god no!” Hunk shook his head so hard he hit Shiro in the face with his headband. “No, no, no. You get that responsibility away from me, Shirogane. I don't want any part in all the other crap, I'm fine over here trying to figure out how to feed alien refugees and figuring out healing pod tech and occasionally carrying my best friend to safety.”

Shiro laughed quietly into Hunk's shoulder and even though it didn't last more than a few seconds it felt good to know Shiro still had it in him after today.

“Yeah, I think our tasks are still kind of set for us.” He looked over at Keith. “I should probably go and talk to him, huh?”

“Man, definitely. Not sure how much you'll actually get through to him before Lance is out of there, but try. He's probably beating himself up worse than the rest of us together.”

Shiro made a vague, wavy hand motion. “I don't know about that, we could probably have a very lengthy argument over which one of us is feeling more guilty for this clusterfuck. But it's not any more his fault than mine and I should at least try to get that through to him before Lance wakes up and the dam breaks.”

Hunk groaned into his hands when Shiro started to pull away. “Please, please make sure he doesn't start avoiding Lance out of misplaced guilt or something. I can't handle that much drama. Also, still not your fault, man.”

Shiro gave him an indulgent smile and slowly went over to Keith and the healing pod. The intense look they exchanged before their eyes were drawn back to Lance – and would you look at that, Keith actually made enough room for Shiro to see anything – felt a little voyeuristic to watch, so Hunk averted his eyes. Only to find Allura sliding down the wall next to him.

“Did you talk to him?”

Hunk nodded, focusing on watching Pidge freak out over the med tech Aal'hid was showing her. He'd never seen her get so excited about medical equipment, so it was probably a good bet to say she was just very determinedly trying to distract herself from a screaming breakdown after today's events. Hunk could relate.

“I tried to tell him it's not all his fault, but he's still gonna beat himself up over this for some time to come.”

Allura shook her head, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, eyes full of sadness. “It's a sign of a good leader. If you do not feel guilty enough about your past mistakes there is no incentive to do better by your charges the next time around.” She wrung her hands in her lap, head down. “I should have seen this. Shiro has been more compromised than me, and I do not blame him for it. But I have grown up at war, I have been trained for this longer than any of you, and yet I failed to see such a jarring fault in our plan. If I had only just thought to-”

“Princess, this is not anyone's fault.” Hunk carefully nudged her in the side. “I told Shiro and now I'm going to tell you. There were a lot of people with a lot of different strengths and some with expert strategic knowledge in that room. None of them saw this. It happens. It shouldn't, but it does, and beating ourselves up over what-ifs is not going to change that or make it any better in retrospect. We can try to avoid similar mistakes in the future, but there's always something else that can go wrong that no one has even thought about yet. Do you think Lance would thank you for beating yourself up like this?”

“No, probably not,” Allura said with a breathy nod, offering Hunk a sincere smile this time. “When did you get this wise, Hunk?”

Hunk smiled back at her. “Actually, that's a lesson I learned from cooking, believe it or not. You experiment and try new things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Sure, sometimes you set the kitchen a little bit on fire, or burn something or get the spices all wrong. One time I was so distracted when stress-baking that I mistook salt for sugar when I was trying to make cookies. But you learn from your mistakes, even when you keep making new ones. And eventually you get exquisite deliciousness and a gourmet pallet for your efforts. And sometimes your mistakes even pay off, like when you accidentally make scaultrite lenses while trying to figure out an Altean cookie recipe.”

Allura actually chuckled at that. “You are right. I do not think something useful will come out of Lance getting injured again, but we will certainly learn from this mistake and hopefully not repeat it again. That was very good advice, Hunk. Are you sure you would not like to consider-”

“If you're about to offer me a higher position in command or anything, stop right there, Princess. Shiro already tried that. I'm fine where I am, leg of Voltron and all that. I'd like to be the head someday, but just to try it, not because I want to be the black paladin. Yellow and I are just fine.”

Allura got up with a smile, resting a hand on Hunk's shoulder. “Well then, I will not force you into anything. You did great today, though, Hunk. You kept your head and saved Lance and still found the time to worry about the others. You are indeed the heart of Voltron.”

The smile slowly slid off her face. “But you might want to rehearse that very inspirational speech.”

Hunk snuck a glance at Shiro and Keith, still glued to the front of Lance's pod, hands intertwined. “For them? Sure, I can try-”

“No.” Allura shot an apprehensive look at where Hunk assumed the castle was located. “For all of us. After Noodle has gotten a hold of us.”

Oh crap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, I don't think this counts as a cliffhanger! Who knew I had it in me xD For those of you who were actually interested in seeing my writing tag for in-between chapter updates, you can find it under vodkaniliforv.tumblr.com/tagged/Katja%20writes. Nothing in there right now, really, but I will fill it up a bit as I work on the next chapter.


	5. The Push and the Pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue is a brat. Noodle is angry. And what the hell are they putting in those Accropian healing pods?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have another chapter, for I am weak.

**The Push and the Pull**

It was cold. That was the first thing Lance noticed when he woke up. Then the stickiness and the darkness registered. The smell of dried blood was suffocating in the enclosed space. Just when he was about to veer towards the wrong side of claustrophobic – and was there ever a right side? - the doors to the healing pod peeled away like flower petals opening for the first rays of sunlight in the morning and Lance more fell than stumbled out. But that was okay because he fell into something tiny and hard-but-yielding that smelled of more dried blood and Keith's shower gel and immediately wrapped strong, wiry arms around him.

“Could've at least taken off the bloody armor first,” he tried to say, though who knew what the mumbling actually leaving his mouth sounded like to the others.

“Hey, I'm cradling you in my arms! Can't deny the bonding moment now. Now stop ruining it and let me sit you down somewhere, you're heavier than you look.” Lance graciously decided to ignore all the times Keith's voice cracked on those few sentences in favor of finding a comfy place to sit down. The closest was a not-so-cozy med bay bed. Lance improved it by pulling Shiro down next to him and half lying on top of him.

“Shouldn't you be using Keith as a pillow? He's the one who caught you fresh from out of the pod.”

Lance grunted into Shiro's shoulder, annoyed by the fond amusement in his tone. He wasn't awake enough for fond amusement yet. There was always so much of it going around wherever he was.

“But Keith is tiny and too ripped and not comfy. He can be my space heater if he wants to, though.”

“Wow, that is truly heartwarming. And to think we were actually upset you got shot.” Pidge poked him in the side, unfortunately right where the wound had been a few... hours? days? earlier. Lance lazily batted her hand away.

“Don't poke the gunshot wound. And you luuurve me.”

Before Pidge could poke him again, Keith was right at Lance's side, so deep in his personal space he was already back in Shiro's. And fussing like a concerned mother hen.

“Are you okay? The wound isn't still hurting, is it? Aal'hid said you should be all healed up, it should just feel a little tender at worst...”

Keith finally shut up when Lance just grabbed his fluttering hand and pressed it to where the wound had been. Which was very clearly visible, what with the Accropian pods apparently not requiring armor removal and the blood-smeared hole right there.

“There. All good. Not hurting. Now stop fussing and come here.” Lance made grabby hands until Keith was curled half around him and mostly on top of Shiro, who didn't seem to mind his new role as leading pillow of Voltron. How Lance had ever doubted those two were wrapped around his little finger when he wasn't doped up on happy healing pod hormones was beyond him.

The only thing ruining the peace and quiet was the constant nagging at the back of his mind, as if something was trying to kick down a door into his consciousness like a really determined Jehovah's witness. He'd be worried about it but Blue was purring at him from the almost exact same place, so it was most likely fine, if a little unusual.

And anyway, Lance got distracted from his musings by Hunk coming in with a plate of what he assured them was food suitable for humans, and suddenly he was _starving_. Lance had rarely been happier to see Hunk in his _life_ , and he'd been plenty happy to see him a ton of times.

Whatever it was, it tasted kind of like spaghetti Bolognese and Lance started scarfing it down before the plate even had a chance to leave Hunk's hand.

“Someone's been hungry.” Hunk was smiling indulgently, not seeming particularly bothered by being demoted to a human plate holder.

“And someone's been working some serious food magic,” Lance got out between huge bites and swallows. Had any food ever tasted this good?

“More like someone's been healing a big-ass gunshot wound in the past four hours and would eat anything put in front of them.” Pidge observed him with the kind of fascination usually reserved for animals in the wild.

“Hey, are you insulting Hunk's food magic? You can go right back to the original green goo if you don't care one way or another.”

Pidge just rolled her eyes at him. Everyone else had the good sense to not interrupt Lance's bonding time with the food from heaven with something as mundane as talking. By the time he had wolfed down every last bite he was already slouching back into Shiro and Keith, who put up exactly no fight whatsoever.

Lance was about to doze off, enveloped in a nice, cozy cocoon of warmth, well-fed and (once again) hole-free, when a screech of static from the Rover still circling around Allura dragged him back into the waking world.

“Princess?” Another bout of static. “Princess, can you hear me?” Coran kept breaking off on them, but the concern in his voice came across clear enough.

“Coran? Are you alright? Is something wrong with the castle?” Allura basically jumped from a content slouch back into her regal command stance, focusing entirely on the Rover.

“Nothing is wrong with the castle per se-” Coran was interrupted by a high-pitched screeching noise that was definitely not coming from the Rover this time. “Just, you see, um...” There was a crash and something that sounded distinctly like sirens. Wait, hadn't Coran said the castle didn't have siren noises pre-recorded?

“Coran?” And nooo, now Shiro was getting up and being professional and leader-y. Which meant he was no longer playing Lance's personal pillow, which meant that now his poor, tired head was resting somewhere between Keith's stone-hard abs and his poke-y ribs. Usually not a thing he'd complain about, but definitely not as comfy as Shiro's all-round well-muscledness. Especially not when all Lance wanted was to rest his head somewhere soft and nap for a week or two. “Coran, what is happening on your end?”

“Well, I don't know how to-” Another crash, even louder this time. It sounded like glass splintering. “Oh, alright. It's Noodle. She's been throwing a fit since Lance got injured and she will not calm down. She demands to be taken to him so she may examine him herself. I did not think it a good idea to bring her into Accropian territory without knowing how they might receive such a guest. But she's even more unwilling to wait now that he has woken up.”

“Why doesn't she just... peek into his head?” Pidge shrugged. “Seems easier than destroying the castle.”

“I don't think she can!” Coran had to yell over the sound of more shattering. If you listened very closely you could hear pissed-off hissing in the background. “Which might be the problem! Do you think it could be arranged for Lance to be transported back to the castle for the night? I don't know how much more damage the bridge can stand! No! Not that, please, that control panel is sensitive-”

Everyone flinched at the crunching sound of polymers being crushed mercilessly by something heavy.

“How is she even doing that?” Hunk looked a little pale in the harsh light of the med bay. “She's a tiny snake! She shouldn't be able to just throw things around! She doesn't even have arms!”

“I don't think that's what she's doing exactly.” Pidge pushed up her glasses. “I've analyzed the data I got from Rover and it seems that she's controlling the castle. Or rather, in this instance, the training bots.”

“That's great!” Lance said from where his face was still smooshed against Keith's stomach. “If Noodle's controllin' the castle maybe it'll stop tryin' to kill me!”

Keith didn't say anything, just ran his hand through Lance's hair. But Lance could tell by the tension in his awesome abs that he was being paranoid about this development. Which was nothing new because Keith was paranoid about every development, but still. He obviously didn't see how _great_ this was.

“No, no, you don't understand!” Lance untangled himself enough to sit up somewhat precariously. “No more airlocks! No more stasis pods trying to freeze me!” He grabbed Keith by the shoulders and shook him gently. Or maybe not so gently, Keith's head usually didn't flop around so much. “No more deadly food goo machines! The castle is haunted by a _friendly_ ghost now!” He reveled in that marvelous thought for a moment before another revelation hit him over the head with the force of a small truck. “Oh, so that's the knocking!”

“The knocking?” Shiro looked very worried now. Like a sad puppy. No one should be able to look as much like a sad puppy as a confused and serious Shiro. “Lance, what are you talking about?”

“The knocking in the back of my mind! It's Noodle!” He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on opening that door in his head, but it wouldn't budge. Blue was still purring and did absolutely nothing else, the unhelpful brat. She was definitely getting way too much amusement out of his predicament.

“Someone's been trying to get into your mind and you didn't tell us??!” Why was Keith shaking him? “What is wrong with you! That's not the kind of thing you keep to yourself!”

“Says the guy with the galra blade.” Lance grumbled until Keith let up. “It didn't seem important! Blue knew it was there and just purred, so I didn't worry about it.”

The sigh emanating from Shiro as he pinched the bridge of his nose sounded like it was dragged from the very bottoms of his feet. “So Blue knew about this, too. Great. Okay. Lance, next time, please just tell us? We'd just... like to be informed if someone or something is rummaging around in your brain.”

Lance shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

“Can we focus on the fact that Noodle is destroying my castle as we speak now?” Allura had her arms crossed in her I Mean Serious Business pose. “I suggest we bring Lance to the castle for the night. Unless that would offend the Accropian law of hospitality?” She turned to Aal'hid, who shrugged at her and waved their third arm through the air.

“I'm sure the officials will be able to make an exception under these circumstances, Princess. As long as we keep a channel of communication open I don't see what should be standing in the way of such an arrangement.”

Pidge was already fiddling with her communicator before Aal'hid had even stopped speaking.

“So, who's carrying Lance?” Hunk asked after watching them for a while. “Because I call Not It. I already carried him to the med bay. While he was bleeding out, may I add.”

“Duuude, what?” Lance graciously slipped off the med bay bed and into the table next to it. What shoddy craftsmanship, that vase shouldn't have fallen down from such a light brush. “I can totally walk myself! I'm fine!” Where did that wall come from? He could have sworn that it had been across the room a second ago.

“Yeah, no.” Keith dragged him back into his side by the elbow. What was up with all that manhandling? Did ManPain McEmo not know any other ways to show his affection? “You're not going anywhere like this, Hunk's right. Shiro, are you up to the task?”

Shiro's answer was cut short by panicked screaming from what sounded like the floors above and under them.

“Nah, I got my ride, if you insist.” Lance grinned at Blue, whose giant robotic nose was pressed to the med bay window from outside. Looked like Accropians weren't used to robot lions bigger than the building just showing up in front of their medical stations for release day.

 

 

The castle's bridge was a scene of destruction when they arrived. Blue had all but carried Lance to the edge of the hanger bay by the back of his neck, purring up a storm that made his head ring a bit. If she could have escorted him up through the entire castle she would have, he was sure of it. As it was she let him go with a regretful nudge to the small of his back that barreled him into Hunk. Lance could be mistaken but he was pretty sure Blue was giving Keith the side-eye as they left. And Keith shuffled his feet like a nervous school boy under her watchful eyes. Huh. When he turned his head for one last glance over his shoulder Lance could have sworn Red was glaring at Blue.

Coran was cowering under the main control panel by the time Shiro half-dragged Lance over the threshold, armed training bots still standing guard with their swords out. The remains of the other paladin's seats were strewn across the room, the blue one the only one still standing, Noodle raised up on the very top of it like a disappointed queen awaiting her remorseful subjects.

The moment she spotted Lance she started hissing, one of the bots immediately moving towards him with purpose. Keith tried to put himself between it and Lance but was shoved aside unceremoniously. Shiro obviously thought better of trying the same and merely watched as the bot gently lifted Lance into its arms bridal style and carried him over to the blue seat to utter silence, apart from Noodle's hissing.

No one moved until Lance was carefully maneuvered onto his knees in front of Noodle's makeshift throne, holding very still as she wound up his arm and came to rest curled up on his head like a tiny, glowing crown. The wave of relief and love emanating from her was so strong he was grateful that he was already kneeling down. She didn't even have to conjure up the memory of his abuelita holding his face and telling him how much she loved him because it felt just the same anyway. All that was lacking was the warmth of the afternoon sun on Varadero falling through the window and the smell of the ocean and garlic knots drifting in on the breeze.

“I'm so sorry,” Lance whispered, voice cracking, eyes closed and desperately trying to cling to the image in his head, to the light wood of his abuelita's kitchen counters and the speckles of dust sparkling in the sun. “I'm sorry, beautiful, I didn't mean to worry you.”

The hissing stopped and there was nothing but serene calm in his head, fear and worry and pain a mere echo.

“How come she gets an apology?” Keith didn't sound actually put out, so Lance didn't deem this worthy of a moment-ruining reply.

“The more interesting question is, who will clean this mess up and how are we going to replace our chairs.” He could hear Pidge rummaging around in the clutter covering the room.

“Guys, I don't think that's a problem.” Hunk sounded impressed with whatever was happening, but not impressed enough that Lance wanted to open his eyes and let go of the way his abuelita's left cheek dimpled when she smiled like that.

He didn't need to, anyway, because the door had been kicked down now and Noode wasn't holding back anymore, let him feel the way she was manipulating the castle's code, ordering the bots to clean up their mess, the production units to replicate the destroyed chairs.

Allura's stern command voice eventually cut through the hushed silence. “Can we agree that this is no way to handle situations like this? Next time Lance is in danger, could you maybe find a way to get to him without destroying the Castle of Lions?” Noodle hissed at her but didn't move otherwise, the noise more token protest than actual disagreement. Lance felt the echo of her panic and desperation down in his soul, the moment when the pain had dragged him under and unconsciousness had severed what little faint connection they had maintained over the distance. He could sense the whisper of discontent that her time in the galra prison had left her so weak, that she couldn't get to him, couldn't contact him, had no control over the situation. If only they had been near the water. The desert-like surface of the planet had destroyed all hope of swift rescue, of connection, of revenge. It was not her element, and neither was it his. Their souls vibrated on one frequency, pushing and pulling with the call of the ocean.

“Don't worry,” he said with a smile, still not opening his eyes. “She'll find me next time.” With that, he finally let his mind come to rest, too, let the tiredness drag him under, barely feeling the bot gently tucking him into the blue chair before the sweet siren call of sleep drowned out everything else.


	6. Pidge the Super Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nah, I'm fine. Please, Hunk, I'm not an amateur who couldn't even remember that the best way to get someone out of the line of fire at short notice without getting covered in holes yourself is to dropkick them. Not a scratch on me. And yeah, Allura and Coran just listened in on you guys for long enough to see that you got it under control and then switched to a private link with me to guide me through. Well, Allura actually crawled down that one tunnel with me and ended up kicking a lot of ass... But you know, story for another time. When Lance can pout at me for having missed all the really cool action while he unnecessarily played damsel in distress.”
> 
> \- remember that? Well, the time for that story is this chapter! In Pidge's POV. Which mostly happens in the second half of this chapter. It is a very long chapter.

**Pidge the Super Spy**

 

Lance didn't wake up until almost lunch time the next day. When he'd finally disentangled himself from the blanket someone had tucked around him and blinked his eyes open into the harsh light of the castle bridge, Coran was standing over him with a wide smile and a plate of food goo.

“Good morning, Lance! How are you feeling today?”

Lance pushed a hand through his hair, trying to figure out whether the dull headache came from sleeping too little, too much or getting shot in the torso. Or maybe it was a hangover, the little flashes he could remember from yesterday seemed a little doped up. Did he call Keith ManPain McEmo? He still had his head, so probably not out loud at least. Noodle moved on his head and tugged at a strand of hair, sending him an image of Shiro, Keith and him in a tangle of limbs akin to a human pretzel. Which she'd clearly stolen out of someone else's head because she hadn't been there. Which was why the bridge was in ruins. Which... it wasn't anymore?

For the first time since he woke up he took the time to look around the room and it actually looked pretty much the same as before.

"Wasn't the bridge...?"

  
Coran waved him off. "Oh, Noodle had the bots repair that already."

  
"So why am I-?"

  
"Shiro tried to maneuver you back to your own room once you had fallen asleep, but Noodle wouldn't let anyone close. She just started hissing until we backed off again so we assumed it would be wisest to just let you rest in the chair instead of risking another... incident."

  
Lance scratched at the back of his head. "Sorry about that. Didn't mean to freak anyone out like that. And Noodle didn't mean to kinda destroy the bridge and terrorize you, if she hasn't apologized yet. Not really. She was just very scared when she couldn't sense me anymore, she just knew I was hurt and was angry she couldn't help me."

  
"Oh, don't you worry, Lance." Coran smiled down at him, the plate of food goo still in his one hand while the other absentmindedly twirled his mustache. "Noodle has apologized to all of us already, and she has been very remorseful toward me in particular, as we spent a lot of time together up here while she guarded your sleep."

  
Noodle tugged his hair again, sending him a wave of what he'd describe as 'Really? I Didn't Grow Up In a Barn, I Know My Manners'. Lance returned a heartfelt 'Well, how would I know??' and focused his attention back on Coran.

  
"So, where are all the others? Shouldn't we be at, like, an Accropian honor banquet or something by now?"

  
"Oh, right, yeah, you missed that."

  
Noodle flicked the tip of her tail and one of the training bots – thankfully without a sword this time – carried over another chair for Coran to sit down in. Coran slid into it without batting an eye.

  
"So, it turns out that while the Accropians are very grateful that we saved their leader, under great sacrifice of our own no less, and dismantled the rebellion network in the process... Well, with the chaos of the parade's aftermath and the blue lion's little... escapade, the Accropians were rather intimidated by us and were not overwhelmingly sad to see us go. They will of course support us in the war against Zarkon and we're welcome to return at a later date, when the uproar has died down a little."

  
"Awww." Lance pouted a little. "I got shot and there's _s_ _till_ no parade to celebrate us?"

  
Coran shrugged. "Well, technically you were hit trying to protect your teammate and not the Accropian leader. And I fear the parades might have to wait until we defeated Zarkon."

  
Lance fell back into his seat with a groan, to Noodle's hissing protest. Uncomfortable creaking and a waft of dried-blood smell reminded him that he was _s_ _till_ in his armor.

  
"I'm still wearing this thing?? And no one could have taken it off in the meantime?" Then a thought crossed his mind, too terrible to contemplate because oh god, the _r_ _epercussions_ \- "Oh no, how long have I abandoned my skin care regimen?? How long was I even out in that healing pod? What day is it??"

 

Coran put a concerned hand on his shoulder. "You were in the healing pod for four hours and it is around noon the next day. You have only missed a day."

  
Lance took a deep breath. Okay. A day was not so bad. Admittedly, he'd also skimped on most of it the day before that, when he found Noodle. But he could work with this. This was salvageable.

  
"And we tried to remove your armor, but Noodle wouldn't let us approach that far."

  
Lance rolled his eyes up in an attempt to glare at Noodle where she was still perched on top of his head. "You really gotta stop being this paranoid. We have Keith for that. The others just want to help. It's not their fault."

  
Noodle sent him a wave of put-out disagreement that read something like 'Well, this wouldn't have happened if _I_ had been there'.

  
"Maybe not, but dude, what happened happened. Can't make it not happen now, so you gotta forgive them eventually."

  
Noodle huffed into his hair, not feeling particularly convinced.

  
Coran chuckled at him, subtly pushing the food goo onto Lance's lap. "I'm sure she's going to come around eventually. She has let me this close, after all, and she didn't throw the back of a chair at Shiro when he approached the second time to put a blanket around you."

  
"You threw a _c_ _hair_ at Shiro??" Lance finally gave in and shoveled a spoonful of goo in his mouth. It tasted faintly of omelet. Definitely Hunk's work. Noodle sent him a very insistent image of the back of a chair, and the back only. "No, it doesn't make it better that you only threw _p_ _art_ of a chair at him!"

  
Coran watched them bicker with interest as Lance ate, stroking one side of his mustache in thought. "It's fascinating to observe you two communicate. It isn't necessary for you to reply verbally to her input, is it?"

  
Lance shook his head, shoveling more food goo into his mouth. That stuff actually got better with every bite. Hunk was _m_ _agic_. He remembered his manners just in time to swallow before he replied. "No, not at all. It just feels more... natural? And it would probably look really weird for the rest of you if I just started gesticulating wildly and not say anything."

  
Coran took the empty plate back with a fond chuckle. "Probably. If you want to see the others, they are downstairs in the dining room planning the return route for the refugees we picked up on the prisoner ship."

  
"I think I'm going to get out of this thing-" he tugged at his blood-stained, scratched-up armor, "first and then take a nice, long shower. I'll probably be down in an hour."

  
With that he left for his room, Noodle curiously peeking over his forehead as he tried to peel some of his dirt-caked armor off on the way. He gave up halfway there. "So, they're planning the take back route for the freed prisoners, huh? Anywhere you wanna be set down?" Lance tried for a light tone, even though he knew all too well that Noodle could feel the dread tying his stomach into a knot. He knew better. They rescued Noodle out of a prison, of course they'd bring her home sooner or later. She probably had family that loved her a lot and missed her.

  
A wave of sadness the scope of which Lance couldn't even fathom crashed over him in response before Noodle tried to shield it off and draw it back in.

  
There was so much loss and loneliness and desperation in it, he was scared to ask anything else.

  
"Your family... They're... not there anymore, are they?" His voice cracked on the last syllable, grief that wasn't his own closing up his throat.

  
Noodle slid down his cheek and curled up into his neck, leaning her snout into the skin right over the pulse point.

“I'm so sorry.” Softly, ever so softly, he moved his index finger down her tiny head in a soothing motion. Noodle let him pet her for a few moments before she curled her tail around his wrist and drew in his hand until he was cradling her against his neck instead.

“So do you want to stay with us? Do you wanna go somewhere else?” Lance didn't know why he was whispering but it seemed appropriate for how he was holding her standing in the middle of the hallway, almost at his room but not quite.

Noodle flicked her tongue against his neck and hit him in the cheek with her tail, the 'of course, silly' as clear in his mind as the trajectory of a shot on the training deck. Lance swallowed hard and berated himself for feeling relieved and grateful.

“Can... can you tell us what happened? Maybe we can still...” Noodle shook her head against him but sent him an image of the others gathered around the dining room table, so Lance assumed she was trying to say that she didn't want to tell the story twice and they all needed to know.

 

 

 

An hour and a half later Lance strolled into the dining room in his lion slippers and bathrobe, his favorite citrus-y face mask on. It wasn't like the others hadn't seen him like this plenty of times and his skin could really use the soak after all that stress. And after the grossness of spending almost two days in his armor, most of that time while it was blood-stained, he was refusing to put on clothes that were less than divinely comfortable for as long as he could get away with it.

No one batted an eye at his appearance, anyway, they mostly just looked very relieved to see him back in one piece and not doped up.

  
Hunk all but jumped out of his seat to offer Lance his own chair. He only subtly changed direction and guided him to the demonstratively free one between Keith and Shiro instead when Keith glared at him. If Lance hadn't still been so tired he would have been amused. He still ended up being amused when Keith immediately wound a hand around his elbow when he sat down, a scowl on his face as if he had been presented with Coran's cooking and decidedly Not Looking at Lance. Meanwhile Shiro exchanged a fond smile with him and gently rested his human hand on his shoulder and something warm and fluttery took up residence in Lance's stomach.

  
Then Noodle ruined the moment by slithering down his face to sit up on his shoulder. Brat. She'd clearly spent too much time with Blue already.

  
"Ah yes." Allura turned to her with a smile that was a little bit too far into smirk territory for Lance's comfort. "This topic is of course very interesting to you, Noodle. Would you like us to return you to your home planet? We're currently planning the route to get the other former prisoners back to their homes. If you'd just tell us where-"

  
Without warning the dining room fell away around them and they were all standing in stark blackness, shadows moving in the abyss around them. Lance thought he distinctly heard Shiro mutter "Oh for the love of- Not again!" next to him.  
"What's happening here?" Hunk spun around on his heel to get a better look but the darkness was equally impenetrable in every direction. They could have stood on their heads for all Lance could tell.

  
"Noodle is showing us something, I think. Maybe her home planet?" Allura looked way too comfortable for someone who'd suddenly been mentally projected into utter darkness. Some days, Lance was really glad he never got to see Altea. He felt a little guilty about it until he remembered the falling lava rocks.

  
A sudden blue glow that looked very familiar drew their attention – not hard, since it was the only thing apart from their own silhouettes to look at. It never got close enough to figure out if it was really Noodle, but it illuminated enough space to see some weird cross between a submarine and a space ship, soldiers dressed in purple with helmets pouring out of it and grabbing the silhouettes of struggling creatures, shooting at everything else with what looked like... harpoon launchers? Lance became more aware of the tugging motion and the pressure around him as he watched, the familiar sensation and the pull in his gut – water. Of course. They were underwater. This was the deep sea and apparently the need to dive in order to conquer and destroy was not enough to stop the galra empire.

  
The blue glow grew stronger and illuminated more of the destruction the galra were causing, something truly huge moving within it, slow and deadly. It seemed ready to strike, but then an even more familiar pink light spun a net around the blue shape, trapping it until the blue was so dim it was barely recognizable and only the pink light was left to show how the shape's desperate call, ringing in their heads, went unanswered because there was no one left to call back anymore.

  
As suddenly as they had been thrown into darkness they were pulled back into the bright lights of the dining room, disoriented and horrified.

  
Pidge was blinking excessively, her glasses sliding down the very pale tip of her noise. "That was your home planet? Haggar trapped you and they just killed everyone else?" Noodle nodded her head, pressing herself further into Lance's neck.  
"Wait, trapped her? But the net was only around that giant- Oh." Hunk stared at Noodle with wide eyes. Noodle glowed a little brighter in response, but Lance could feel how much even that bit of extra effort tired her out.

  
"How long have they been keeping you in that prison?" Lance asked softly, reaching up to pet Noodle's head with his pointer finger. Pidge made a faintly choking sound in the back of her throat but Lance paid more attention to the way Noodle was apparently trying to hide behind his ear.

  
"I'm so very sorry for your loss." Allura got up and rounded the table until she was standing next to Lance, holding out a hand to Noodle. Noodle actually moved away from Lance to press her head against it. “I promise you we will do our best to prevent this from happening to anyone else ever again. Zarkon will tear no more families apart.”

There was a moment of somber quiet. Lance could feel the waves of commiseration and compassion coming from the others through his connection to Noodle.

To exactly no one's surprise, Lance was the one to break it after he'd decided this had gone on long enough. “So, I hear we dismantled the rebellion network! Anyone up to filling me in on when that happened?”

“Actually, that was all Pidge's doing, with a little help from Allura and Coran. We have yet to hear that story, too, Pidge was holding out on us until you could hear it.” Shiro absentmindedly rubbed the back of Lance's neck as he turned to give Pidge a proud smile and Lance had to try very hard not to melt into the chair like a content cat. Noodle flicked her tongue out at him, mockery all but exuding from her. Whatever. Lance was going to enjoy this. Two short days ago he was convinced Shiro and Keith would never see him as an equal and now they were basically latched onto him and very obviously did care a lot about his well-being. Like, _a lot_.

Lance could be somewhat oblivious, he could admit that to himself in the sanctity of his own mind (that was being encroached on by both Blue and Noodle now, but whatever), but even he couldn't miss clues this obvious. Shiro did not massage the back of people's necks for extended periods of time just because. And Keith was basically clinging to his elbow and tried to follow him into a _bathroom_ to keep him safe. Keith, whose personal space bubble was about ten feet wide unless your name was Shiro or the situation forced less on him.

So yeah, Lance was gonna bask and Noodle could suck it.

But back to Pidge, who was smirking that really evil smirk now that made Lance want to hide under the table.

“It's quite the story! Prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen!” She actually stood up from her chair and pushed her glasses back up her nose like a very cliché anime character. Lance's mouth fell open about three sentences in and didn't close for the entire duration.

 

 

_Pidge was cursing the mountainous landscape of Accropia for approximately the three hundredth time in the past hour. The parade was moving so incredibly slowly that she'd managed to climb up and down at least five hills and search every possible outcrop on them before they'd even moved so much as a few feet. Or at least that's what it looked like from up here._

_She'd just been kicking rocks down the sixth hill while Rover Junior circled every_ _crook she might have missed or was too big to physically stick her head in to check for possible assassins. Well, more like stick her bayard in because Shiro had taught her a few things since they had been_ _lost in_ _space. And_ _Pidge_ _had a lingering suspicion that Keith's paranoia might be catching after all. Though paranoia was a pretty sensible reaction to their circumstances in her books._

_Anyway, nothing and no one had jumped out at her so far, be it five-legged or not. There hadn't even been a trace of anyone setting up camp or even so much as investigating possible camp sites around here. She'd heard Shiro curse and clamber up hills on the other side of the parade path over the comms and he hadn't found anything useful yet, either. Neither had Hunk, or Allura, or any of Rover's brothers and sisters. The comm link to the Accropians was a little more unstable than their own communicators but from what little bits and pieces of words she could catch from them it didn't look too promising on their end, either. Not that it was promising to find an assassin. Well, possibly if you hoped to stop the assassination, which they did._

_The sound of the last wave of tiny rocks she'd kicked down the hill she was standing on almost covered the noise,_ _but Pidge had been hard-wired to recognize it by now and her ears caught it anyway – Matt had always told her she had ears like a_ _sheep_ _dog. Mostly because she always caught him when he tried to sneak back down into Dad's hobby lab at night and she forced him to let her join._ _T_ _o be perfectly honest that had been more about the tiny laser trip alarms she'd installed on his threshold and programmed to send a direct alarm to her phone than actually hearing him sneak past._ _But of course she hadn't been about to tell him that so the myth continued._

_In this instance, though, her hearing actually was the key factor._ _Pidge's_ _head followed the noise on instinct and she caught sight of the red line of light down the hill just in time to realize that_ Oh no, Keith's armor, they're not going to aim for the leader right away, they're going to shoot Keith and then use the ensuing chaos as a cover. _It only took another millisecond to bring the thought to the only logical conclusion – Lance was down there, too, and Lance was on high alert for once. A Lance on high alert was not someone who missed something this critical. And his eyesight really was_ _freakish_ _ly good. Helped_ _along_ _by the fact that he'd spent a lot of time staring at Keith in his armor and probably thinking he was_ _being_ _subtle about it._

_Pidge was not surprised when the wet gasp crackling over the comms was immediately followed by Keith blabbering nonsense. She felt numb all over as her eyes inevitably drifted down to the parade and the red spreading out from where Keith was cradling Lance in his arms once more. The shrill noise of the laser sight re_ _setting_ _pulled her out of her shocked apathy, the red dot already wandering away from Lance and Keith and quickly flickering toward the leader._

Oh no, you don't. _Lance was down. But whether or not he made it, if this scumbag succeeded or escaped it all would have been for nothing. Their only link to the network would vanish, maybe never to be found again. Even if the leader wasn't killed today, if they didn't put an end to the entire group right here it was only a matter of time until the pro galra front would take control and ruin the Accropians' odds of survival._ _And then Lance would have been shot for nothing. And that was not something Pidge could or would accept._

_The ass who shot Lance was on the same hill as her and she_ would _make them regret that decision._

_There was only one possible perch location she and Rover Junior hadn't checked yet,_ _a formation of rocks precariously stacked on top of another formation of rocks,_ _so the sample size was thankfully very small. Just like Rover Junior. Or her, for that matter. The shooter definitely hadn't expected a tiny drone with cloaking tech to sneak up on them from behind and shock them into next week. Or a tiny paladin to jump on their back and ram her bayard into their side for the sweet, sweet pleasure of pure vengeance._ _She might have yelled “This one's for Lance” as she did it. No one ever needed to know, the others sounded plenty busy on their ends_ _and she had wisely put her own link on 'listen only'_ _._

_J_ _ust as her eyes fell on a weirdly shaped small piece of green-ish rock Allura materialized at her side like the ninja she really was._

“ _Pidge, are you okay? We haven't heard from you since-” She leaned over Pidge's shoulder, completely ignoring the heart attack she had just given her. “Oh, these look like Puthiknese key stones!” She reached over Pidge's shoulder and twisted the tiny green rock in a complicated-looking pattern._ _A hidden trap door that was almost as well-camouflaged as Rover Junior slid open at the bottom of the rock formation._

_Allura and Pidge exchanged a gleeful look. “Coran? How are the others doing?”_

“ _Keith and Shiro seem a little lost but it looks like Hunk has the situation under control, he's on his way to Lance's position and telling them to bring him to the Accropian healing pods. I haven't heard him throw up so I think he's good to go!”_

“ _Then could you switch to a private link between just you, me and Pidge? We have discovered something here and taken out the shooter, we could use your help from the castle. I don't want to distract the others from taking care of Lance.”_

“ _Sure, Princess! What have you found? And should I send an Accropian delegation to your position to take the shooter into custody?”_

“ _Yes, that would be appreciated. We have found a trap door to what we're assuming is their underground base. Wish us luck!” Before Coran could protest Allura jumped down the hole with a feral grin, Pidge right behind her. They came out in front of a tunnel, helpfully illuminated by Rover Junior, barely big enough to fit an Accropian. It wouldn't exactly be cramped for her or Allura but standing upright wasn't an option, either._

“ _Princess? Pidge? What is happening?”_

“ _The trap door leads to a tunnel. We're going to follow it.”_

“ _Could you take over some of the Rovers for me,_ _Coran? I'm sending you the data I got from the thing that unlocked this, Allura seemed to recognize it. Could you send out the Rovers to check for more of these at our other suspected nests? There are probably more entrances and maybe we can get at them from different sides.”_

“ _They seem to be Puthiknese key stones, they at least reacted to the same opening sequence. Do you still remember it?”_

“ _Who do you take me for, Allura? Of course I do! I was only the master of cracking Puthiknese key stones back in my day!”_

_While Coran was distracted by a retelling of the countless times he'd masterfully figured out weird alien key stones in his youth, Pidge and Allura started crawling down the tunnel. Why had no one told her that the helmets of the paladin armor had this super awesome night vision function?? The things she could do with this. She was getting her hands on all of their helmets as soon as they were back at the castle and knew for certain Lance would be okay. That was the only thing ruining the Mission Impossible theme music in her head – they had_ _shut off_ _the input from their general comm link to avoid distractions. AKA they had no clue what was happening down in the parade and just how bad Lance was doing. Hopefully Keith and Shiro had pulled themselves back together by now._

_Coran finally stopped his monologue to inform them that two of the Rovers had found other entrances and were starting to infiltrate. Pidge caught a quick glance at her omnitool to follow their progress when they were sure the lights wouldn't be noticed._

_It wasn't long before they were close enough to the end of the tunnel to hear hushed voices._

“ _Dev'rek hasn't succeeded! We need to send someone else up! Shooting one of these paladins won't help our cause!”_

“ _It's useless to send someone else in now, they already brought U'fah to safety, you heard Men'il! All sending up someone now is going to do is get us discovered! The paladins and U'fah's detail are searching for us, and they're not going to take us shooting one of their own lightly!”_

_The other Rovers had reached their destinations, too, but the other hide-outs had only contained one easily zapped Accropian rebel each. A careful scan of the room revealed that this one only held three as well. Either they were a wide-spread bunch or the Accropian rebel movement was ridiculously tiny. Pidge nodded at Allura to go ahead._

_Allura took the very stealthy approach of kicking down the door with relish. “You're right, we do not take it lightly_ _when our teammates get shot!” She followed her statement with a boot to the closest rebel's face. Pidge was pretty sure she'd just learned what the sound of a breaking nose sounded like from up close._ _She'd have to try that some time. For now she contented herself with jamming her freshly charged bayard into the second_ _rebel_ _'s side with vicious satisfaction and watching Allura wipe the floor with the third one._

_Broken Nose started talking before Pidge could pull out her best Godfather impression to question him. “Please, don't hurt me! I'm the one who gave_ _the tip to U'fah's detail!”_

“ _Are there more of you or is it just you, the two at your other hide-outs and the shooter?” Allura stood over the double agent with crossed arms and they looked a little like they were about to pee themselves._

“ _That's all of us! We weren't many, but I risked my neck giving the anonymous tip when they started getting serious about the assassination plans for the parade, because Dev'rek is an excellent shot and they might have succeeded even with our small numbers!”_

_Pidge switched back into the main channel to check with Hunk while they waited for the Accropians to detain the rebels. Allura seemed to have fun with their t_ _a_ _ttle-tale. He was giving them everything._ _T_ _hat idiot._ _Pidge had hoped her first cool spy mission would be a little more... exciting than this. Her next rebellion network better be a little better staffed than this. Working with amateurs was never any fun._

_As soon as the Accropians had arrived and they_ _had crawled back through the tunnel and climbed to the surface Pidge and Allura exchanged a disappointed look._

“ _That was not quite as exciting as I had hoped it would be.”_

“ _I knooow!” Pidge sighed. “We only_ _got_ _to beat up two guys each and one of them immediately gave us everything we wanted without prompting.”_

“ _I guess the good old tales of infiltration my father used to read to me are from days long since gone.” Pidge couldn't tell if Allura was more nostalgic for her lost family or the quality of adventure back in the day._

_Either way, it led them into a plain geek-y conversation about spy novels versus 'tales of infiltration' that lasted as a distraction the whole way to the med bay. Maybe Allura and her did have a lot more in common than it seemed._

_The real mystery of that day, though, came hidden in the data from the castle during Noodle's fit. Pidge stared at her laptop screen with wide eyes later that night, after Lance passed out on them on the bridge. She'd decided to take a closer look at the data to see how exactly Noodle had been communicating with the castle. The solution was so subtle_ _she had scrolled past it five times before she finally noticed._

_Because Noodle hadn't just mind-whammied the training bots with brainwaves or something. She'd altered the code of the castle's programming. Not in binary code or a strange form of programming – perfect Altean coding, as elegant and efficient as the rest._ _N_ _o difference visible apart from the fact that Pidge regularly made copies of the castle's current code to keep track of_ _possible changes and those pieces hadn't been there before._

_So Noodle_

_\- could mind-meld with different species_

_\- could influence technology with her mind_

_\- had been held in the high security part of a galra prison ship_

_\- could formulate perfect Altean coding – which most likely meant that she was_ old enough _to be familiar with the Altean language at all and their programming in particular_

Oh, this is getting interesting alright.


	7. How Lance Made Keith and Shiro Cry Twice in One Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well," Hunk got up out of his chair and clapped his hands. "Looks like this is a good time to leave you three alone for that talk that got interrupted!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took a little longer this time, I've had a really stressful week or two. For those of you who actually check my writing tag on tumblr every now and again, sorry there was nothing in there this time, I literally wrote the entirety of this chapter on my phone while at a friend's place or on the train. I'll use it again next time ;)  
> If you're waiting for a chapter full of plot, you'll have to hold on for the next one. Enjoy anyway!

**How Lance Made Keith and Shiro Cry Twice in One Day**

So yeah, Pidge was apparently James Bond now.   
"Awww man, why do I always miss the really cool stuff." Lance crossed his arms, his hand ever so casually covering Keith's were it was still wrapped around his elbow. His heart jumped into his throat when Keith wordlessly turned over his hand and laced their fingers together. He still wasn't looking at Lance.   
"Well, maybe you should stop getting shot or blown up then."   
Pidge sent him the most unimpressed look she could manage. Ironically enough, it was rather impressive.  
"Hey, it's not like I'm asking to be shot!" Lance had to content himself with gesturing with his right hand because he sure as hell was not letting go of Keith with the other.   
"Maybe not." Shiro used the hand still on the back of Lance's neck to flick his ear. "But you could have tried to get Keith out of the way without getting hurt. Next time try a dropkick."   
Lance groaned into Shiro's shoulder, deliberately rubbing some of his face mask on his shirt. "Will you drop that anytime soon?"  
"Never." He pulled Lance even closer, carefully burying his Galra hand in his hair. It was really nice, especially since Keith was still holding his hand.  
"Well," Hunk got up out of his chair and clapped his hands. "Looks like this is a good time to leave you three alone for that talk that got interrupted! It'll be a while before we hit the first planet on the route, so we'll just make ourselves scarce!"  
Lance had never seen the others fall in line to leave a room with a mumbled excuse so quickly before, not even when it was Coran's turn to cook. Hunk only dropped by Lance real quick to collect a very reluctant Noodle from his head, then he was also gone, a broad grin on his face.  
"Oh, quiznak," Lance mumbled into Shiro's shoulder before he tentatively raised his head to check the other two for their reactions.  
Keith was still decidedly not looking at him, his cheeks a lot redder than usual. That was definitely not just a trick of the light. Shiro on his other side looked apprehensive, as if he was expecting Lance to flee the room at the first opportunity. Lance felt kind of guilty – the thought had crossed his mind. But while he wasn't going to be _excited_ about talking out his insecurities he was also 900% more certain this particular conversation would end in his favor than the last time.  
"So." Shiro looked straight at Lance until Lance had no choice but to look back. "I think we were interrupted when we were trying to get to the bottom of what made you think we thought of you as less somehow."   
Lance closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, obviously I've been veeery wrong about that, I realize that now, so can't we just-"  
"No." Keith gripped his hand so tight his knuckles started to hurt. "You thought we- How could you even- No."  
"What Keith is trying to say," Shiro said, an indulgent smile on his face that Keith wouldn't see anyway because he still wasn't looking at either of them, "is that we obviously made you think we don't adore you. Apparently even the opposite. And we don't ever want you to feel that way again, even by accident. But we can't know what to do differently when we're not sure where we went wrong in the first place."  
Keith nodded sharply and Lance's heart clenched in his chest. Had he really hurt them this much with his own self-doubt and obliviousness?   
"I'm sorry," he whispered to his feet, unable to look at either of them anymore. "I never meant to hurt you. It's just... Everybody has their... _thing_. Like, Pidge is terrifyingly smart and can probably hack the Pentagon in her sleep and Hunk is a food wizard engineer and the kindest person I've ever seen. Allura is a badass leader type princess and diplomat and Coran just knows _s_ _o_ _m_ _any_ things and he's a brilliant mechanic. Shiro, you're the hero leader type and Keith is the best pilot I've ever known and a really good fighter and I admired both of you from afar for so long. And then there's me. I don't have a special thing, I'm just kinda the seventh wheel you need to form Voltron. Except not really because water is malleable, right? Adapts easily. To new paladins, for example. I'm just... I feel like the annoying class clown who no one takes seriously even when I'm being serious. I'm just kinda here. You two are special and you have that bond from before, from the Garrison. You don't need me and it shows every time you choose each other over me. Which is all the time, even if I am for once in fact the logical choice. Allura does it, too. So I guess it's pretty clear that no one here actually needs me for anything."  
It was utterly quiet for a moment, so quiet that Lance could hear nothing but his own thundering heartbeat in his chest as he fought down tears. There it was. He had laid it all out there for Keith and Shiro, the two people he admired and loved more than everyone else on this ship (and that was no small feat). If this silence meant they were contemplating his words and silently agreeing Lance wasn't sure he'd survive with his sanity intact, no matter how much Hunk hugged him or Noodle and Blue sent him comforting images.  
Finally, the spell was broken and Lance was ripped out of his increasingly depressing thoughts with a solid, just-gentle-enough-to-not-really-hurt slap on the back of his head.  
"Ow! What was that for?" Lance's head snapped up to give Shiro an affronted look. His heart sank when he saw tears in Shiro's eyes.  
"You idiot. Never, ever say anything like this about yourself ever again. You are _n_ _ot_ replaceable, you are _n_ _ot_ worthless to this team. You are, however, special and loved and needed. You're a great sharpshooter, you have a really good eye for strategy and you're a good pilot. Blue loves you and she'd eat any new paladin before she'd let you go, you two have the deepest connection out of all of us. You're smart and perceptive, when you want to be, and you have good ideas. You're easily the most welcoming out of all of us, which is a very good thing, even if the rest of us sometimes thinks it's a bit naive. We need someone who's more balanced, who has all these great qualities at once. We need _y_ _ou_ , Lance. We love you and I'm so sorry I've dismissed you in the past. It was never my intention, much less to hurt you. I was annoyed or frustrated and a good leader should have seen beyond that and listened to you. I'll do better in the future and I'll have a talk with Allura. And me choosing Keith over you was not because I didn't think you'd do a good job, it was because I thought we needed more bonding time or that Keith needed to learn a specific lesson. Which, in retrospect, weren't the greatest criteria and I'll have to work on that. But it was never about not wanting to choose you, Lance, please, believe me."   
At this point, Shiro was holding Lance's other hand and both of them were outright crying. The hand Keith was holding had become numb about halfway through Lance's speech and Lance turned more on instinct than actual sensory input when Keith tightened his grip even further.  
"You're not the worst pilot ever, I guess. And that you could even see that dot on my armor was actually pretty incredible. Even if your method of getting me out of the way sucked." His voice sounded like he had suddenly developed a horrible cold and Lance only realized it was because he was crying – real ugly-crying with a runny nose and all, nothing like Shiro's almost-silent movie star tears – when he finally turned to them. "I guess what I'm trying to say is I love you and you are so much more special than you think. You're not replaceable, not to me, not to Shiro, not to Blue or Hunk or Pidge or Allura or Coran or Noodle. I'm not more special than you are. Shiro is not more special than you. We're just good at different things." Lance couldn't take the eye contact anymore and buried his head in Keith's shoulder for a good few deep sobs, arms wrapping around his waist from either side in comfort. "And Shiro really needs to work on his "I" statements."   
That got wet chuckles out of Lance and Shiro.   
"Fine. _I_ love you, Lance, and _I_ need you. Not an abstract team-we." Suddenly there was a very broad and strong chest against Lance's back and Keith finally loosened his grip on Lance's poor abused hand and started gently massaging some blood flow back into it.  
"When did you get so good at massages?" Lance asked through excessive sniffling – so maybe his nose got runny too when he cried, whatever. Keith breathed a weak laugh into his hair.   
"Coran, actually. He taught me when he noticed how cramped my hands used to get after too many hours on the training deck."  
"My sister Yvelisse was a real pro at this, too." Lance couldn't keep the smile out of his voice if he tried. "She's an artist, you know, so her hands were cramped all the time, too. My dad took a course in Thai massages at one of the fancy hotels on Varadero and taught us all how to do it as a birthday present to her."  
Shiro snorted into his hair. "That's a very thoughtful gift."  
"Yeah, my dad's great. He'd love you guys." Lance jumped a little in his seat as realization hit him, jostling Keith and almost causing Shiro to land on the floor. "Quiznak, I never said it back! Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I love you guys, too, and this so doesn't sound heartfelt at all, I'm-"  
Keith shut him up with a hand over his mouth and a smile in his eyes and god, they really were gorgeous eyes. Why was that boy so pretty even with tear stains on his cheeks? "It's fine, Lance. We kinda knew that already."   
Lance spun around to look at Shiro, who just gave him a sheepish smile and a shrug. "Yeah, it was pretty obvious after a while."  
Lance took an indignant breath to prepare for his affronted tirade. "Hey! For all you knew I could still have been hung up on Allura!"  
"Yeah, that would have sounded more convincing if we hadn't caught you staring all the time." Shiro grinned at him and Lance could feel his cheeks heating up beyond the red of his recent tears. Damn, it probably even showed through the tracks his tears left in his face mask. And great, he just had this whole conversation while wearing a face mask. "It's okay, we've done our fair share of staring back. I'm actually surprised you never noticed, what with how sharp your eyes are."   
Lance felt a calloused hand leaving his waist and gently gliding through his hair, massaging his scalp in the process. He valiantly tried fighting the urge to lean his full weight back against Keith with a purr for all of five seconds. "His hair is exactly as soft as it looks. And it smells really nice." Keith sounded almost reverent. Shiro pouted at him as if he had robbed him of his most precious possession for a tic before his human hand carefully tangled itself in Lance's hair as well.  
"It really is." His voice had gone a little breathy and his eyes – also very, very pretty, though not quite as gorgeous as Keith's – were wide. It was giving Lance kind of a rush to see and hear how awed Shiro and Keith were at something as simple as his _h_ _air_. Though he did take really good care of it, thank you very much.  
"So, what now?" Lance asked when even the soothing effect of two hands playing with his hair couldn't keep the nervous excitement down. "Like, how do we handle this from here?"  
Shiro and Keith exchanged a lost look. "Uhh... We kinda didn't plan this far ahead."  
"I-statements, Shiro."  
"It's not like you had any kind of plan!"   
"Calm down, guys!" Lance booped them both in the nose to shut them up. "It's okay, we're going to figure it out. For now I'd like to wash this mask off my face, I can't believe I had a serious feelings talk with this on, and then I'm going to change into something a little more work-appropriate. I meant to scrub Blue down as a treat and to get all that grimy Accropian dust off of her. You wanna come with?" He gave them a once-over. "And you guys could use a little water in your faces, too."   
Shiro smiled at him and Keith briefly squeezed his waist. "Sounds like a plan."  
Before any of them could get up to actually make good on their plan the door to the dining room slid open and Hunk came bursting in with the biggest grin and Noodle in his hand.  
"I'm so happy you guys worked it out! Noodle told me you were done in here for now!" He stopped dead at the very obvious tear tracks on their faces. "Oh no, tears. Did-"  
Lance waved his worries off before he could work himself up. "It's okay, big guy. Not that kind of tears."  
Hunk let out a big sigh. "Phew. I really didn't want to have to threaten to beat Shiro and Keith up. I don't think that would have worked out for me." Keith looked flabbergasted, which made Lance laugh even harder, which caused Shiro to facepalm with gusto.   
Lance only deemed to get up from his spot laughing into Keith's shoulder when Noodle tugged at him and demanded to return to her spot on his head.   
"So you listened in on us for the others, huh?" Lance booped her on the nose in reprimand before he took her from Hunk and placed her back in his hair. Noodle sent him an image of his cousin Arturo's best innocent puppy dog eyes and gave his hair a displeased tug – apparently Shiro and Keith's attentions had disrupted her favorite sleeping spot.   
"See you guys in the bay in fifteen?" When they nodded at him Lance left them alone with Hunk's fifty questions and headed to his room. Not that he had gotten the much better deal, in his opinion, with the pestering nudges he had to bear from Noodle. Thankfully she decided to give it a rest when he opted to let her have a nice bath in the sink while he washed the mask off in the shower.   
However, she demanded he take her down with him to the hangar bay once he'd changed into his usual clothes. Lance couldn't help but feel like he was bringing a chaperone to a date. Noodle didn't say anything at all to that so Lance assumed that about summed it up.   
To his own amazement he was only two minutes later than announced when he arrived in the hangar bay, Shiro and Keith already waiting by their lions.   
"So, you scrub down Blue from time to time?" Keith asked from where he was leaning against Red with his arms crossed as if he were trying to channel James Dean.  
"Of course! You don't? No wonder I can see the grime in Red's joints from here."   
Keith looked like he was about to give him a piece of his mind when his head suddenly swiveled to Red and he started giving her the most betrayed look Lance had ever seen outside of his abuelita's beloved telenovelas instead.   
"Guess Red agrees with me." Lance stuck his tongue out at Keith like the grown-up and adult paladin he clearly was and began his climb up Blue's leg. Once he was perched on her head she carefully bent down to pick up the bucket full of water mixed with a little of his own shampoo and Blue's favorite sponge for him. Then he got to work under Shiro and Keith's watchful eyes. Lance had never been this aware of how much his biceps flexed during this – Blue _w_ _as_ a giant robot lion, after all, gotta use a little more force or she wouldn't feel a thing, and all that dirt they were collecting during their paladiny duties wasn't coming off with a pat either. But yeah, Shiro's eyes pretty much never strayed from his arms the moment he got started and while that was very flattering it was also something Lance was decidedly not used to. Lance comforted himself with the familiar purring of Blue in his mind.  
"So, you do that a lot?" Keith looked genuinely curious, absentmindedly patting Red's leg as he watched Lance's every move.   
Lance almost dropped his sponge in the middle of scrubbing down one of Blue's ears. She was slowly sliding down into Sphinx-style position at the attention, like the giant kitty cat she actually was. "Keith, did you just use a 'come here often' line on me??" Noodle had to poke the tip of her tail into his ear to make him close his mouth again.  
"What?" Keith's nose scrunched up in that adorably confused look he got when confronted with pop culture references, that little hermit. "What are you talking about? I was just honestly wondering-" Lance never found out what exactly Keith was going to say because Shiro's wheezing laughter was drowning out his words at that point. He was literally slumped against Black because he was laughing too hard to stand upright on his own, clutched belly and tears down his cheeks and all.   
Lance watched in awe while Keith just gave him a very exasperated glare. "Good to know that you can still have a good long laugh at my expense." Keith got to sulk for all of two tics before Red playfully nudged him in the side and sent him sprawling on the floor. Which only served to make Shiro laugh harder, especially when Black pulled her leg away and watched him topple to the floor while she folded herself into a cat bread.   
Since Blue hated being left out of the loop when the other lions were being brats – she was Chief Brat, after all – she naturally had to flick her freshly scrubbed ear at Lance.  
"Hey! I just showered earlier! I'm doing a nice thing for you! If the other lions jump off a cliff, do you jump too?" Lance hurried to wipe the worst of the soapy water he was now soaked in away from his mouth and eyes. Blue sent him pictures of Lulu after that one traumatizing evening where they tried to give her a bath because she'd been hiding out in Sofia's dirty laundry for hours, a quiet snickering in his mind.   
_Brat_ , he thought back, deliberately wringing out the sponge over her nose. The indignant yelp in his mind was worth almost getting thrown off when Blue shook her head to get rid of the excess soap water.  
Pidge chose that moment to enter the hangar bay with her laptop under her arm. She spared one look at Shiro still quite literally rolling around on the floor laughing, Lance and Blue drenched in soap water and Keith's futile attempts to get off the floor without Red playfully nudging him back down like this was the greatest game ever.   
"No," she said in the decisive tone that was usually reserved for Lance suggesting they defeat Zarkon by hacking into his ship and having the Nyan Cat song play on endless loop. With that she turned on her heel and left, which only set off Shiro some more. To exactly no one's surprise Shiro laughing his ass off was pretty infectious, so they eventually all ended up laughing until their sides and throats hurt too much to keep going.  
"You have a really pretty laugh," Lance said apropos nothing as he leaned against Blue's ear to catch his breath, looking up at the hangar bay's ceiling.   
"Who, me? Or Keith?" Shiro still sounded breathless. Green gently nudged him with one of her paws to see if he was still alive.   
"Both of you, I guess. You should laugh more often."  
"Well, now we've got you to laugh at." Keith was propped up against Red's jaw, half draped over her nose.  
"Yeah, you do," Lance said with a smile.  
The peaceful quiet lasted just long enough for Lance to wonder whether getting up and demanding cuddles while he was covered in soap water would ruin the moment before the castle alarm blared through the hangar bay and dyed everything red.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks @ nathengyn for all the glorious comments and the idea that Lance washes Blue whenever he can :D See, if you throw random headcanons and plot bunnies at me in the comments the chance is not so little that they will end up in here xD Since we're at it, also credit to Janna (Ianna) for enlightening me about the drop kick and thusly delivering me a beautiful running gag ;)


	8. The Guardian Spirit of Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know what they say about best laid plans... And no one has anything better than a half-cooked one in this entire chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another long chapter! Happy birthday to me! My gift to myself is a) your wonderful comments and b) that I finally got to write this scene. One of my favorite parts about this story, and it's such a strong image in my head I would totally draw it if I didn't have the artistic abilities of a five-year-old. A very ungifted five-year-old. If you can't tell which scene I'm taking about by the end of this chapter I clearly haven't done my job right ;)
> 
> ALSO, it's finally time for the art reveal at the end of this chapter! Most of you already guessed, but it still might be interesting for those who haven't yet!

**The Guardian Spirit of Water**

Keith glared up at the ceiling as if it were solely responsible for the alarm going off. “Seriously? Can't we catch a break for a minute, just once?”

“Never thought I'd hear you of all people say that.” Lance half slipped and half climbed down Blue's snout to dangle himself into her open jaw. Thankfully, experience had taught them to keep a spare armor in their lions, so they didn't have to get back to the bridge first. Red, bless her evil, cunning genius, waited until Lance turned around to snatch Keith up by the back of his neck like a naughty kitten and gently throw him in the air so she could catch him in her mouth, to Keith's screaming protest. Shiro weakly flopped on the floor with another bout of laughter, which had Green nudging him some more in interest while Black sat back and watched with the most unimpressed expression a robot lion with mostly unmovable facial features could muster.

In his mind, Lance apologized profusely to Blue for ever calling her a brat. Compared to Black and Red right now she was almost a saint. The resulting laughter in his mind was so loud Lance clapped his hands over his ears even though he knew damn well that that would do absolutely nothing.

“I know why I said almost,” he grumbled to himself as he put on his left boot. Whoever had designed the lions had thought ahead and included something that looked eerily similar to classical locker room lockers back on Earth, so Lance didn't have to haphazardly throw his regular – and soap water-drenched – clothes into a corner. His abuelita would have his head and knowing his luck he probably would slip on them later, anyway.

Lance only looked back out to check on the others once he'd grabbed his helmet. Red was sitting still and Shiro was nowhere to be seen, so Lance assumed he'd stopped laughing at some point and actually made it into his lion. Or maybe Black just had had enough of the entire situation and picked him up herself.

“Good thing they were too busy to ask about you, huh?” Lance asked, catching slight movement out of the corner of his eye as the tip of a black tail with glowing blue markings disappeared under his chest plate. “Are you sure I can't convince you to stay here? You're still pretty weak from however long you actually spent in that Galra prison.”

Noodle sent him the mental equivalent of a raised middle finger, so Lance decided to drop the topic for now. That left him with another concern, though. “But isn't it gonna get a little, you know, stuffy and hot in there?” He wasn't going to say stinky because Lance knew his deodorant's capabilities better than that, but the armor's priority wasn't exactly channeling fresh air to his chest.

Noodle retaliated with an image of Black's best unimpressed face, followed by a picture of her in his sink, underwater.

“Yeah, but water still has oxygen that you can filter out.” Noodle poked her head out of the armor again to shake it at him.

“So you don't need oxygen?”

Noodle's tail came out as well to perform a wavy motion. “You do need oxygen occasionally because you need water from time to time?”

Noodle nodded and disappeared back under Lance's armor. Lance sighed. “For some reason, that doesn't really make me feel better about what's going to happen when the others find out you came with. Here's to hoping they've forgotten you were there with me in all that chaos.” He put his helmet on with a flourish. The comm link went online almost immediately.

“Hey Lance, where did you leave Noodle?” Aaaand of course Shiro hadn't forgotten even though he'd been busy dying of laughter not five minutes ago.

Lance was about to stutter his way through a hastily improvised lie when something cold and ancient trickled into the back of his mind until his own thoughts were pushed to the side, trapped in a void of nothingness. He distantly felt Blue move, felt her get up and walk over to the entrance to the castle itself.

“I'm dropping her off at the castle entrance, there's a nice vent she'll be hidden in in case anything happens, and if she gets too bored waiting she can use it to move around the castle.” Blue leaned over the vent and opened her mouth as if she was actually dropping Noodle off. Lance felt himself taking off his helmet before the weird sensation of being somewhat literally out of his own body faded. Noodle's head popped out of his armor, hanging low and visibly radiating remorse.

“Did you just mind-whammy me?” She nodded her head slowly, hesitating before she dared a glance up at Lance. Lance closed his eyes and took a deep breath, pushing away the panic and the fury for the moment.

“Why?” he asked, eyes still closed, still breathing deeply, voice as even as he could make it.

Noodle showed Lance pictures of himself being caught in one very obvious lie or another throughout the ages, each image tinged with a remorse that hadn't been part of the memory. He felt Blue move back to the hanger bay and the other lions and a sudden, horrifying thought struck him.

“You didn't mind-whammy Blue, too, did you?” His breathing was starting to become erratic and fury was filling Lance's head like static. It was Lance standing at Santiago Carballo's door at the tender age of twelve and yelling at his indifferent parents until they actually started crying all over again. All because their son wouldn't stop bullying Lance's youngest sister Pilar.

Blue was quick to assure him that Noodle hadn't influenced her mind, some of the remorse he felt from all sides clearly coming from her now that Lance was paying attention.

“So you both just jointly decided the best course of action here was clearly to take control over my body??” Noodle flinched back and hid in the armor. Blue sent him a wave of guilt.

“No, guys. That's not okay. Not ever, you hear me? You don't just take over someone's body. Have you guys ever heard of the concept of consent? If you think you can handle a situation better than I can you don't just reach into my mind and start directing me like a puppet. _Ask me first_.”

Noodle slid out of the armor and up his neck to boop his cheek with her nose, sending him more remorse and a promise to never do this again, not without asking him for permission first. Lance could feel the fear and the desperate need to protect him in the vastness that was Noodle's mind, troubled waves in the usual calm ocean. There was a flash of someone else's perspective, of himself lying lifelessly in Keith's arms, a sea of red spreading around him.

“Damnit, he did cradle me, huh?” Lance sniffled in a completely dignified manner. “I get that you just want to protect me. But what you did just now? Not the way to go about it. And you know that that doesn't just apply to me, right? I don't know what the rules for ancient super strong space sea creatures are, but if it's sentient you don't just control it.”

Noodle sent him a picture of an attacking Galra soldier. “Yeah, okay, maybe it's okay to make this guy put his weapon down. But only in a really dire situation where we can't handle that any other way, okay? They're the bad guys, sure, but we're no better than them if we don't apply the same basic rights we want for ourselves to them.”

There was a moment of quiet filled with Blue's pride over his mature answer.

“Do you think you could mind-whammy Zarkon into being an actual nice guy and releasing all those colonies if we got close enough?”

Blue gave him the mental equivalent of a slap to the back of his head. Noodle sent him a picture of Haggar, tinted with disappointment.

“Of course not, that would have been too easy. Guess we'll have to solve this the old-fashioned way.” With a sigh, he put his helmet back on, Noodle quickly disappearing back into his armor.

“Lance, where have you been? Pidge and Hunk arrived and Pidge just gave us the gist of what the alarm's about.” And there it was, ladies and gentlemen, Shiro's exasperated kindergarten teacher voice. Worked like a charm on the guilt ducts every time.

Huh. Guess teaching a super powerful sea creature and a ten-thousand-year-old magical robot lion about mind control-related consent took longer than anticipated. But that just meant it was time for one of Lance's favorite games.

“Sorry guys, just fumbled my helmet for a bit there. Hey, Pidge. Give me the cliff notes, no science-y stuff and less than fifty words.”

“The Galra finder located part of Zarkon's fleet over a nearby water planet. Looks like a search patrol, we think they might be looking for Noodle. Simple enough for you?”

“I don't know, think you can draw me a diagram on a cave wall?”

The sound of collective groaning was music to Lance's ears. “No, but seriously. Why would they be looking for Noodle on a random water planet? If they noticed the prison ship being cleared out they'd probably know it was us, right? Maybe it's just a scout patrol looking for new planets to destroy?”

“Unlikely. Judging by its location the Galra should have already scanned this planet for potential resources – every habitable or otherwise useful planet in a radius of 500 light years has been colonized. Our own scanners and the castle's notes indicate that there is literally nothing to get on this one except for water, some corals and a couple fish. No higher life forms, no useful resources. But I did catch several of the ships' outgoing transmissions and they repeat a word that most accurately translates to nāga. Which, according to my research, is the [Sanskrit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit)and [Pali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali)word for a deity or class of entity or being taking the form of a very great snake. In Indian Hinduism especially they seem to be considered nature spirits and the protectors of waters, mostly rivers, lakes, seas, springs and wells. They bring rain, and fertility and are regarded as guardians of treasure, but are also thought to bring disasters such as floods and drought. It says here that they may take human form and tend to be very curious but are only malevolent to humans when they have been mistreated.“

“Wait, Noodle can take human form??” Hunk sounded a little appalled at the idea. Noodle just gave off a general vibe of offense, so Lance couldn't really tell if it was because of the word used or Hunk's reaction to the idea of her taking human form.

“Don't worry, Hunk, I'm pretty sure the cultural concept just doesn't translate very well. And even if it did, just because that's what the Galra believe about Noodle doesn't mean it's factually accurate.”

There was a moment of silence before Pidge was back on the comm, her voice an octave higher than normal. “Apparently, Noodle agrees and also wants me to tell you that she can't actually transform into a human, or any other kind of alien.”

“She can reach you from all the way back at the castle?” Shiro sounded concerned. Yes, concerned. Lance was going with that. No trace of suspicion for his newly gained boyfriend there. Wait, were they boyfriends now? In concept he'd say yes but they didn't agree on actual terms, did they? What was he supposed to call Keith and Shiro in the hypothetical situation that an alien asked about their relationship status? Or would that be a nonexistent question anyway because he'd have to use that species' cultural equivalent? But then again the lions and/or Pidge's translation programs took care of that so if he didn't know which word to use in his own language(s)... Thankfully, Pidge's reply derailed that train of thought. It wasn't like Lance could start an in-depth conversation about what they wanted to label their relationship during ambassadorial visits to other planets during a mission, anyway.

“Not exactly? She wasn't directly contacting me, she told me through Green.”

“That's... oddly considerate.” Keith sounded way too surprised by that for Lance's liking.

“Well, I taught her a few things about mind control and consent, so don't sound so surprised.”

“With you as a teacher? I'm amazed her manners didn't get worse.”

Shiro had stopped trying to put a hold to their bickering in resignation by the time the Galra ships finally came into view. The surface of the planet they were circling seemed to be all water, indeed.

“Pidge, you still haven't told us why the Galra would think Noodle would be here.” Lance felt a tug in his stomach at the sight of the undisturbed, crystal-clear surface, neither all his own nor just Noodle.

“Maybe they assumed we wouldn't figure out what Noodle really is, considering how much her imprisonment has weakened her, or that she wouldn't have told us. If there's a chance we set her free on a nearby water planet because her home planet has been destroyed they probably don't want to waste it.”

Lance switched off his side of the comm link for a moment. “Do you want to go? Maybe not here, but somewhere where the Galra can't find you? Don't know how many water planets like this there actually are, but even a moderate-sized ocean is probably better than a sink on a space castle.”

Noodle's steadfast refusal to even consider the idea was almost a solid presence in Lance's mind.

“But why not? I can feel how much you want to go, you know that. The sea is calling to you and I doubt the little bit of processed water I can offer you in the castle is going to be good for you in the long run. Or help you restore your powers.” Noodle sent Lance a picture of himself picking her up, tinged with safety and love, followed by an image of Zarkon that was basically dripping with fury and the thirst for revenge.

“You want to stay with me and help defeat Zarkon?” She lovingly nipped him in the ribs. Lance took that as agreement.

“But once we've done that we're going to find you a nice planet with lots of water, okay?” She sent him a memory of Varadero Beach and Lance's heart skipped a bit. “You'd come with us to Earth?”

Noodle nipped him again and Lance was just going to blame all that biting for the water in his eyes. Even if it had been really gentle and a hundred percent unrelated. “Well, I guess 71 % of it are water...”

He paid closer attention to the comm channel again and switched his own link back on. Shiro was still working out their strategy with the others. After all, Pidge's cloaking device could only shield them for so long, so they should probably be battle-ready by then.

“I'm not sure that's the best strategy. I don't think we're actually seeing all of their ships, this is a really small fleet for a search patrol. If they're really searching for Noodle it would stand to reason that they'd also deploy submarines that my scanners just can't pick up from here. And I'm worried about that one ship in the middle, it's a lot larger than what they usually use for this type of mission. If what Noodle showed us is any indicator it might be packed full of druids.”

“They wouldn't bother their druids with random scouting missions to who knows how many water planets, Pidge. Not when they know better than us for just how long Noodle has been in captivity and how weak she still is. Maybe they just took a bigger ship along to transport submarines.”

“Or they might be expecting us and it's full of weapons.”

“Way to be an optimist, Keith.” Lance rolled his eyes even though no one could see him. “But I'm with Pidge on this, Shiro. If they assume that we dropped Noodle off on a water planet as soon as possible, who knows how quickly she might have regenerated in an actual ocean. Druids would be much more useful than actual weapons in this case and they also wouldn't hurt against us, so win-win. If they want Noodle back badly enough to send out search troops I'm pretty sure they're going to spare a few druids for it.”

“And that's more optimistic how...?”

“Either way, we can't really account for the druid's attacks, or submarines we can't detect yet. Our best bet is to approach them still cloaked and take out as many as we can before they notice us. Keith, we're dismantling the big one, everyone else choose one and try to use it to get rid of as many others as possible. If we manage to take down all or at least most of them before we show up on their scanners we should be prepared enough to take out any submarines showing up as support as well.”

“Does anyone else feel like this plan is not going to go down like we want it to at all?” Lance felt inclined to agree with Hunk but short of leaving again and letting the Galra do whatever they wanted with this planet they didn't really have a better option. And maybe it had to do with being the Guardian Spirit of Water, or with Noodle's presence, or growing up at a beach surrounded by ocean but Lance was very unwilling to let the Galra have this planet.

So they got in position anyway, Black hovering under the main ship's belly to claw it open, Keith over it to take it apart from the top. Green took cover behind a ship that would be unable to fire at her from that angle but would work well enough as a shield as Pidge took out as many others as possible with her plant cannon-thing. Yellow was drifting a little off to the side to gain enough momentum to hopefully tackle the intended target into several other ships as well and Lance and Blue angled themselves so that a direct ice shot would catapult the hit ship into at least one or two others.

They attacked on Shiro's command. At first everything was just peachy, their attacks took out most of the fleet in one go, the main ship went down, their targets crashed into their fellow ships just like intended. And then Lance, who had been the one with the least cover in that moment and the easiest target from the ocean surface, found out the hard way that the druids had in fact _not_ been in the main ship. Or at least not when they attacked.

A flash of pink light drowned out the red and yellow of the explosions all around him as Blue rocked so hard he was almost thrown out of his seat. The electronics around him died out, his connection to Blue turning into static in the almost exact same moment. And then he felt himself fall, the heavy metal of Blue's usually agile body drawn down to the water's surface. Lance braced for impact, yelling for his teammates, but of course the druid magic had taken out his comm as well, and the chaos of the exploding ships hid his fall from the others, who were still busy with the rest of the fleet. Blue hit the surface with a splash that had the water climb up in giant waves around them, the impact strong enough to actually catapult Lance out of his seat and into the control panel, before gravity pulled him down again and his back hit the wall behind his chair.

And then they were underwater, sinking deeper and deeper until everything around them was darkness. Darkness that was slowly becoming illuminated again by a faint purple glow in the distance, approaching more and more with every passing second.

Lance somehow clawed his way back to his chair but the controls remained unresponsive and Blue was definitely still out for the count. The lights were still getting closer and Lance wasn't sure what would happen if another of those magic blasts hit them. He was only sure he didn't want to find out. He looked down at his bayard.

“Guess it's time to find out if our shields can hold off druid magic as well.” Just as he was trying to calculate when the perfect time to emerge from Blue would be so he could try to shield her without losing sight of her as she dropped further into the ocean another crash shuddered through her, though much gentler than the initial impact with the water, and she came to a standstill. This time, Lance had actually managed to cling to his chair and not be smashed into the wall again.

“What happened?” Noodle helpfully sent him a picture of deep sea rock outcroppings illuminated by the soft blue glow of her markings. Probably a memory of another planet, a long time ago, but since Noodle knew a lot more about the deep sea than Lance and something _had_ stopped Blue he was just going with it.

“Well, that takes care of one of our worries at least.” Another look outside showed that the purple glow had almost come close enough to make out the silhouette of a submarine now. “Time to get out and test the shields, then.”

The entire climb down Lance could feel Noodle protesting violently in his mind. There was a moment of hesitation when he hit the manual release and Lance was almost certain she'd been considering taking control of him to stop him. She didn't, though, true to her word, and the screaming protests in his mind died down. This was to protect Blue, after all. He wouldn't let them destroy his lion, destroy Voltron. And certainly not in her – in their, really – element.

He was tempted to leave Noodle back in Blue's cockpit where she would be a lot safer than between the chest plate of his armor and his chest. But he was very well aware that even suggesting it would only be met with the proverbial middle finger, so he just prayed that the shield would hold long enough for the others to hopefully find them and safe their asses.

By the time he'd made his way in front of Blue and activated his shield the Galra were already close enough to make out, ergo close enough to shoot at them. Which meant that Lance thankfully didn't have time to think about just how stupid what he was doing actually was. Their first blast was one of the harpoon-y things they had seen in Noodle's memory and while a direct hit drove him back a few inches it was reflected by the shield no problem, harmlessly tumbling down into the endless abyss under them.

Obviously, the Galra didn't believe in second tries because the next blast was already a surge of purple-pink magic coming straight for Lance. And while it didn't seem to pass all the way through the shield it certainly packed a lot more punch than the harpoon and threw him right back against Blue, his armor connecting painfully with the metal of her shoulder and rattling him head to toe. Disoriented and still trying to get his bearings back he felt another harpoon bouncing off of his armor. Lance finally managed to blink his eyes open again just in time to be blinded by a lightning bolt of purple coming straight for his helmet. He'd closed his eyes again on instinct, but he didn't need to see it to know his helmet was nothing but pieces drifting down to the bottom of the ocean now. He could feel the cold of the ocean on his face, the pressure of the water and the depth pressing on his ears, his eyes, his everything.

Lance could feel himself slipping down Blue's leg, sliding down to follow his destroyed helmet. He tried to activate his jetpack but the magic had turned it into nothing but dead weight. Moving his arms was about as effective, he felt weak as a kitten and barely conscious and every attempt to move only dragged him down faster. The seconds were rattling down in his mind and he could tell he was running out of oxygen. The impact of the hit had driven most of the air out of his lungs, there was no way he'd be able to hold what little there was left in for more than a couple seconds.

Lance distantly felt something small slip out of the collar of his armor and there was a soft blue light that was piercing the darkness behind his eyelids. His oxygen-deprived brain was slow to make the connection and his sluggish limbs even slower to react, so by the time he'd forced his eyes open at least a little bit Noodle was already well out of his reach. This was her element, after all, she could swim better than anyone and she could still escape the Galra, like this she was small enough of a target that she had a chance despite her glowing markings...

His eyes were drifting closed again and Lance knew if they shut now it was very unlikely they'd open again. He wanted to be pissed, pissed that he'd let down the universe and his friends by screwing with Voltron at least for a time and leaving them alone in the fight against Zarkon, that he'd die on his family, that he'd die on his brand-new boyfriends before he'd gotten to kiss either of them, that he'd never see the Galra Empire defeated, that he'd never see Earth again... But the water was sapping him of all his energy, all his rage, and there was only the serene knowledge that this was it, that he'd irrevocably become part of the sea in a few minutes no matter how much his body would try to fight it.

And then there was bright blue light all around him, chasing away the darkness, forcing his eyes open again. The vision before him tore a shocked gasp from his lungs he really didn't have the air for and he instinctively sucked in a breath. Lance prepared for the burn, for the struggle of having inhaled water instead of oxygen, but instead the fog in his brain cleared and the energy was flowing back into his limbs. He gave an experimental kick and the water seemed to move with him to propel him back upwards, the effect almost the same as if his jetpack had come back to life. He looked over his shoulder to check but the lights on his armor were still off, the jetpack still useless.

Lance turned back to the mass of deep black and glowing blue moving before and over and all around him. _Are you doing this?_

Noodle tilted all of her many heads – when had she grown this many?? – in question, as if to say 'what, exactly?' Lance rolled his eyes at her and gestured at himself, demonstratively sucking in a deep breath and kicking himself up even higher, the ocean moving with him like another set of limbs. Noodle used one of her tails – and she had several of those, too?? – to point first at herself and then gently poke Lance in the chest.

_What do you mean we're both doing this? I'm human, I can't breathe underwater! Or, you know, control the ocean! _He gesticulated wildly to drive home his point, but Noodle didn't seem impressed. She showed him an image of the castle database, the part that described the Blue Lion and its paladin, zoomed in unnecessarily on the 'Guardian Spirit of Water' part.

_Yeah, but there was nothing in there about being able to breathe underwater, or, like, water-bend! And I've never been able to do anything like this before!_

Noodle pointed at both of them again, a note of impatience in the back of Lance's mind. It took him a second but he finally figured it out. _So you are kinda doing it but you can only let me do that because I'm the Guardian Spirit of Water and have a connection to it already?_

Noodle nodded her many, many heads – which made for a very disconcerting image, if anyone wanted to know – then moved the sheer magnitude of her new, manifold body to the side to gesture at where Lance could now clearly make out Blue on an outcropping of rock, thanks to Noodle's bioluminescence lighting up the entire area. Which reminded him of something else-

_Where is the Galra submarine?_

Noodle impatiently gestured at a crumpled piece of metal plastered to the wall of rock in a huge dent, then showed him an image of Blue activated and soaring through the water.

_Okay, okay, I get it. But she kinda needs time to recharge and repair herself, we can't just fire her up like nothing happeeeee-_

At this point Noodle lost what little patience she had left with him and bodily dragged him over to Blue by means of one of her bigger tails wrapping around his waist and pulling him with her. Once they were hovering next to Blue one of her smaller tails wrapped around his wrist and moved his hand until it was lying against Blue's jaw. Noodle rested her main(?) forehead against Blue's and Lance watched in awe as the same blue light from Noodle's markings seeped into his lion from both points of contact. For a moment, the ocean around them felt like it was part of him, every tiny fish and alga a little light on his radar, brimming with life despite the darkness around them, the movement of the currents more familiar than his own blood coursing through his veins. And Blue lit up like the first time he'd ever seen her, majestic and beautiful, glowing and weightless in the water. Lance couldn't help but laugh when she snatched him up in her jaws on her enthusiastic surge back to the surface, back to their friends, even if it was soundless and nothing but a stream of bubbles.

As he hurried to climb back to his seat in the cockpit Lance could feel Noodle effortlessly gliding next to them at the same speed and something about the three of them soaring through the water felt like it belonged, like it was supposed to be that way.

They reached the surface in what seemed to be no time at all, even though the sinking part had felt like it had taken forever. Blue spotted the purple glow first, barely distinguishable against the bright lights of lasers and explosions still shining down from above the surface. Between Blue's sonic cannon and Noodle crushing them with the sheer force of the many parts of her fully corporeal body the remaining submarines were disposed of before they even breached the surface and Lance couldn't help the whoop of joy as he and Blue broke free of the water and sent the last remaining ship of the search troop tumbling with a well-aimed ice ray. He activated the video feed on his control panel linking him to all the other lions with a smirk.

“Miss me, guys?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here the art link! https://hardlynotnever.tumblr.com/post/155881370560/venom-in-the-cosmos-a-semi-continuation-of-an
> 
> Also, please be proud of me that I didn't end this chapter on the evil cliffhanger it could have been, I was very tempted ;)


	9. A Small Breath In-Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance gets a wish or two, everyone is relieved no one has drowned and Pidge, Noodle and the castle alarms might be the trifecta of cockblocking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I'm still here and I have not abandoned this story! I just got very busy with life because in the past four months since I posted the last chapter I got a full-time job and moved. Still not entirely used to balancing my new daily routine and my social life after almost six years of being a college student, and some parts of the flat are still ongoing projects that also take up time, so sadly writing wasn't on the priority list most of the time.  
> I swear I will work through the comments that have back-logged in the meantime and reply bit by bit, please be patient with me ;)

A Small Breath In-Between

 

“Lance! Where have you been, we were so worried!” Hunk looked like he was two seconds away from crying in relief at seeing him whole and alive again. Lance couldn't have that, because when Hunk cried Lance cried and that was not how he had imagined his glorious surge from the depths.

Pidge's eyes were wide as saucers and she was leaning so far over her control panel that Lance mostly just saw her shoulder. “Is that Noodle? How many-”

“ARE YOU INSANE?” Keith's shouting was drowning out whatever Pidge was trying to ask. Even Shiro flinched a little at the volume, even though he'd had his serious business face on just a second ago. “You disappeared in the middle of battle, you didn't answer your comm and then you show up with this- this- this _monster_ and you think you can just pop up with a _line_ -”

“Excuse me, but that “ _monster”_ is Noodle and just saved me from drowning and rescued your asses-”

“Guys, are those seven heads?”

“You were _drowning_???”

“It's not a big deal Shiro, nothing happened, that's not what this is about, anyway-”

“Actually, I think I'm counting more like seventeen. We should totally take Noodle back to the ship to get a closer look...”

“She could be dangerous, we shouldn't take her-”

“For fuck's sake Keith, what else does she have to do to earn your trust you paranoid little-”

"Excuse me, for all we know maybe she was the reason you were actually drowning and she has every reason to destroy Galra ships that have nothing to do with whether she's on our side or not-"

  
"She saved me from the druids, oh my god, how many times do I have to-"

  
"We should go back to the ship to check everyone for injuries-"

"But how are we going to get Noodle into one of our lions? I think I'm still counting heads."

  
"We are _not_ taking this thing back into the ship-"

  
"Keep calling her a thing and I will whoop your ass, Kogane-"

  
"Should we even remove her from the water? It seems to be her natural ecosystem-"

"Yeah I'd like to see you try, Espinosa, you can't beat me in hand-to-hand combat-"

  
"Lance, I think Noodle is coming towards you, maybe she doesn't-"

  
"We'll see about that if you call her a monster again-"

  
The petty arguing was decidedly interrupted by a giant space snake with multiple heads enthusiastically crashing into Blue, dragging her back into the water and shorting out the comms for a second. Lance only heard his name screamed in four different voices that had all reached an eerily similar pitch of absolute panic and then all was blessedly silent and the water was between him and his yelling teammates like a protective blanket.

  
There wasn't a single thought between them, even Noodle's mind projections unnecessary as Blue opened her mouth and let Lance out, back into the water, where Noodle was on him in an instant, breathing air and the pulse of the water surrounding them back into him. Lance was floating, weightless and in his element, Noodle all around and Blue just behind him and for a second all was peaceful and just as right as before. Then Lance remembered the screaming of his teammates and Shiro and Hunk didn't deserve that kind of heart-lurching panic twice in one day.

  
Before he could actively try to communicate the thought Noodle was already guiding the currents surrounding them until all three of them were breaking through the surface again. Lance was scooped up by one of Noodle's many heads (seriously, just how many did she have???) and lifted up to a hovering robot shape that was almost skimming the surface. A hollow pang of longing echoed through him as soon as he wasn't touching the water anymore, but he was distracted from the thought when Noodle unceremoniously tossed him into the waiting mouth of one of the lions.

  
Lance had just enough time to look around, realize where Noodle had brought him and gather breath for an indignant huff when something small came barreling into him, knocking him back to the floor and the breath right back out of him.   
"You-" Keith gave up on words with a frustrated, almost pained-sounding noise and then he was kissing Lance, lips clumsily pressed together with almost bruising force. Lance surged into it just as desperately, his last conscious thought the echo of the regret of almost having died without ever having kissed either of his boyfriends. Then everything turned to white noise as he opened his mouth in invitation and Keith took it as a challenge to put his tongue into Lance's mouth for as long as possible without having to draw breath.

  
Objectively, the kiss was probably very very terrible – Lance didn't have much experience to go on and while Keith probably had had more than enough of that with Shiro neither of them was thinking clearly enough to consider pesky things like technique or physics. There were noses smashing into each other when one of them tried to tilt their head in a way that just didn't work, and tongues exploring places they maybe shouldn't have been. There was no finesse to it at all and Lance _loved_ it. His heart was racing in an unsteady rhythm, his blood singing with how right this was. There was Keith in his pulse and in his lungs and in his bones and Lance couldn't think and he never wanted to again. He was breathing water and he was floating with the currents, one with his element and at peace even as his soul burned with want.

  
Eventually, they had to part for air though and Lance took heaving lungfuls, the fog in his mind only clearing when Keith punched him none-too-gently in the chest. "Never do this to us again, you thick-headed moron!" His voice hitched just the tiniest bit on the us and Lance felt his heart break in his chest. He thought he'd caught a tear in the corner of Keith's eyes and that just had to be against the laws of the universe. Keith should never have to cry, ever, and if Lance had to defeat the entire galra empire himself to make it so he never had reason to again then he would damn well find a way.

  
Lance ignored the amused rumbling in the back of his mind that was Noodle and Blue laughing at his dramatics and reached up to gently swipe his thumb under Keith's eyes, catching one lone teardrop. Keith made the cutest sniffling sound Lance had ever heard in his _life_ and Lance could feel a shiver going through him everywhere Keith was still draped over him, causing an answering shiver from Lance, like a wave passing from one to the other. If there ever was a day Keith Kogane shivering because Lance had made a barely-there gesture of tenderness in his direction wasn't kicking off a chain reaction in Lance's _everything_ then you could probably start digging his grave and plotting his tombstone. Lance thought “ _here lies Lance, awesome sharpshooter, blue paladin of Voltron, kissed Keith and made him shiver with a touch to the cheek that one time”_ sounded pretty neat. Maybe by the time they'd actually have to think about his engraving he could add an “ _and Shiro”_. Though Lance wasn't sure what had sounded more unlikely to him before today, the idea of him being able to make Keith shiver with the feather-light distant cousin of a touch or Shiro. Guess he would have to find out since his previous estimations didn't seem all that accurate.

  
Should he maybe say something? Shit, how long had he been stuck in his own mind rhapsodizing?? _Quick, say something meaningful, worthy of the moment, we are totally having a moment here-_

  
"Why, you'd suck even more if you don't have someone leaving your shooting range scores in the dust?"

  
_Or you could say that. Great job, brain. No, really, you'll go down in the books as the next silver-tongued Casanova._

  
Keith rolled his eyes so hard Lance was sure it had to hurt his head.

  
"Yes, because the fact that you're a way better sharpshooter than me is what's keeping me awake at night, not me worrying over your sorry ass kicking the bucket before I had a chance to see what your stupid face looks like after Shiro has kissed you silly."

Lance swallowed hard at that particular image.

  
"So you never wondered what my face would look like after _you_ 've kissed me silly?" It came out kind of squeaky and not at all as suave as Lance had meant it to, a pathetic attempt to cover up the effect Keith's words had on him.

  
Keith smirked down at him, in a way that was all red alert hot, not a hint of condescension in it to save Lance's poor brain from short-circuiting.

  
"Well, I did, but I don't have to wonder anymore, do I?"

  
Lance licked his lips and something fluttered under his ribs when Keith's eyes followed the movement as if pulled by an irresistible magnetic force.

  
"And what does it look like?"

  
Now that smirk, softened for a split-second into something that did _things_ to Lance's entire being, came back with a vengeance and this edge that Lance knew was meant to rile him up and that he was still powerless to resist. Every. Single. Time.

  
"Pretty vacant, to be honest."

  
Lance huffed, lips pulling into a pout. "If you can't tell the difference between blissed-out and vacant then I-"

  
He interrupted himself at the look of utter awe on Keith's face, heart trying to beat out of his chest. Keith slowly, _so goddamn slowly were they trapped in a slow-mo loop, who moved so purposefully, like who does that???,_ reached up to touch Lance's cheek with the very tips of the fingers of his right hand, barely brushing the tiny hairs on the surface of his skin. As if Lance was crystal, an unpayable Swarovski masterpiece and Keith was in stunned awe that he was allowed to touch somehow but also so terrified of accidentally breaking such a precious piece of art. _Who taught that boy that it is okay to look at someone like that??_

  
Lance swallowed hard, almost choking on his own tongue. He was about to start rambling to lighten the mood, to somehow disrupt the seriously intense eye contact that had been going on forever and that he still couldn't seem to break of his own volition. But, as usual, Keith beat him to the punch.

  
"Blissed out, huh?" And here lies Lance, beloved blue paladin, melted into a puddle of hot mess because the pretty alien boy with the unfortunate mullet tried so hard to make it sound like their usual teasing banter, like an attempt to rile Lance up, get a raise out of him. Only his voice ended up coming out as soft as the puddle of mushy goo Lance's heart had dissolved into. _Good-bye cruel world. I guess this isn't the worst sight to go out to._

  
Lance was still trying to remember how to be a functioning multi-cellular organism, still unable to tear his eyes away from Keith's, heart going a mile a minute-

  
"Are you serious now, Keith. You get to have the first kiss _and_ you get to be the first one to see his face like this?" The epic pout was audible before Lance somehow managed to turn his head to verify. The white strand of hair, plastered to a heroically beautiful forehead in places where the helmet had pressed it down, falling into wide expertly lined eyes in other, was _not helping, seriously, how could a grown man look so much like a puppy you robbed of its favorite treat_.

  
"Get with the program then, Takashi. I'm not gonna wait around for you to make a move." Keith didn't even bother to turn his head or even stop staring at Lance like he had spent a year drinking lukewarm swamp water and Lance was one of those volcanic lakes straight from a Volvic bottle.

  
_Straight, huh, yeah right. The only straight thing around here is Shiro's jawline._

  
_Shut up, brain, no one asked you._

  
"Not fair!" Their fearless leader, chosen pilot of the Kerberos mission, Lance's big idol and the one actual adult on that ship (Lance loved Coran but he sure wasn't counting him after the space mall. Even though the pirate costume had been cool. Also, Kaltenecker) – but back to the point, The Universe's Darling Responsible Paladin... Currently sounded like Lance's sister Pilar when you forced her to go anywhere without Dave. "Blue played favorites!"

  
As it so happens, Pilar was five when Lance had seen her last and Dave was a stuffed dolphin.

  
"Or maybe you just were too far away from the water and that's why she picked Red over Black. Not my fault you can't manoeuver Black as close to the surface."

  
Keith was still looking at Lance like he was an archeologist and Lance was a living and breathing triceratops grazing in his backyard. While being a challenging douchebag to Shiro. It was doing _things_ to Lance and he was never, ever going to admit that out loud.

  
"Black is just heavier and-" Shiro blew the strand hanging over his eyes out of his face with an irritated huff. "We can discuss this at a later point. Noodle has gone down to regular size, much to Pidge's disappointment, she's hitching a ride with Blue right now. So get your greedy fingers off of our boyfriend and give the rest of the team a chance to hug it out."

  
That finally made Keith look away from Lance's face to mock-glare at Shiro. "Oh please. You just want your turn to kiss him senseless, too. Quit the altruistic act."

  
"Oh I can't be both? Also wrong. I want to get Lance back to the castle and decidedly _not_ stand in Hunk's way until he's had his share of life-affirming hugs. And when everyone has calmed down and group-hugged like a proper team I'm going to make Lance take a long hot shower. After that I'll have him eat whatever delicious post-battle miracle Hunk will dish out. On the couch, in his bathrobe, while I play the pillow.”

Lance's cheeks hurt from the unholy size of his grin. “Are you going to play with my hair?”

“I'd like to see you try and stop me. It's so soft.” Shiro was starting to get that slightly vacant look in his eyes again, the one that apparently seemed to happen whenever he was confronted with Lance's hair. Not that it was a pattern yet. Two times could still be a coincidence. Lance remained very skeptical, though.

“Sorry, Keith.” Lance ripped his gaze away from Shiro's dreamy expression and turned the grin up to shit-eating. Just the way he knew drove Keith up the wall in record time. “Shiro clearly wins.”

“Wins what?” The honest confusion on Keith's face was almost enough to melt the shit-eating grin into something softer. _Almost._

“Best boyfriend, obviously. I assume the plan is to kiss me silly when I'm clean and comfy and warm. No tackling me to hard metal surfaces and trying to bite my tongue off.”

Shiro's whisper-soft “That was the plan, yes” was just barely audible over Keith's incredulous yelling.

“I- what- this is not a competition! I was just relieved that you- Didn't hear you complain- Uuuugh!” Keith gave up on the fine art of articulation and threw his hands up in the air, a blushing mess of stop-and-go sentences and Lance didn't think he'd ever been more smitten in his life.

“That's just what a sore loser would say, Keith.” Lance drew the name out, letting every syllable drip from his tongue like freshly melted caramel. It made a small vein near Keith's temple visibly pulse which in turn made a giddy rush course through Lance. Did it make Lance a terrible person that he enjoyed being a dick to one of his boyfriends so much? Possibly. But the familiar old dance of their “rivalry” was much safer ground than a world in which Keith looked at him like he'd hung the stars and the moon and saved everything he ever loved in the coffee break in-between – basically, as if he were Shiro.

Speaking of Shiro, there was a loud groan and something that sounded suspiciously like someone face-palming into their paladin armor coming from his end of the comms. Not that Lance could check right now because he was caught in a glaring match with Keith and looking away would mean admitting defeat. So obviously not something Lance could afford to do right now because then Keith would lord his victory over him like-

“I thought we left the stupid rivalry thing behind when you guys finally talked about your _feelings_.” Pidge used the same emphasis most people saved for things like mosquitoes or cockroaches. She also looked about as thrilled to suddenly have full visual of Keith's and his still rather compromising position.

“Woah Pidge, you actually tuned into their conversation? I don't know, man, is that insane or really brave?”

“Eh, I can pull off the mad scientist thing. I have the hair for it, and I've got the creepy reflecting glasses thing down pat. But you do realize you're also on their channel.”

“Yeah, but I don't have video on! You totally do, don't you?”

Pidge pouted in put-upon silence so Lance took it graciously upon himself to answer for her. “Yeah, she totally does. It's very awkward since I currently have a Keith in my lap.”

Said Keith became a gesticulating, sputtering mess in aforementioned lap immediately, color matching his armor, all the more hilarious to the background visuals of Pidge face-palming, Shiro chortling quietly into his human hand and Hunk's disembodied cry of “Too much information, bro!”

A second low chuckle joined the fray. “Paladins, I think it might be a good idea to return to the castle now and – how do you say it? Hug it out?” Coran was really starting to get the hang of Earth lingo – Lance made a note to himself to praise his progress. Later. When they were not having this conversation in this specific set of circumstances anymore.

“I'm not touching them, I can't be sure where they've been now,” Pidge deadpanned, successfully reducing Lance to a similar state as Keith. Yeah, definitely much, much later. When he was done digging his hole, where he could die in shame and peace and quiet. Maybe his ghost could tell Coran that he was getting better at understanding Earth idioms.

“No ditching the mandatory group hug, Pidge.” Lance was amazed how level and kindergarten teacher-y Shiro could keep his voice when the video feed made it very clear that he was about two seconds away from bursting into laughter. The mirth in his eyes cleared away a second later, though, making way for his Serious Leader StuffTM expression as he cleared his throat in a way that made Lance think of sweater vests and elbow patches and his old chemistry teacher's cologne. "I think it's time we get a move on and head back to the castle."

  
Pidge gave him a pitying look usually reserved for Lance trying to flirt with a hot alien they saved. Guess she had to use that one for something else after all now, huh. "You just want to get your hands on your boyfriends. Don't expect me to hurry for the needs of your dick, Takashi."

  
The last thing Lance heard before his and Keith's combined laughter drowned out everything else for a while was Shiro's mock-scandalized gasp and what sounded like Hunk choking on his own breath. Their merry little moment was interrupted by Allura tuning into their conversation after a while.

  
"Maybe I can convince you to hurry up for a fellow girl and her hugging needs, though, Pidge?"

  
Okay so maybe she hadn't just tuned in.

  
Pidge gave Shiro her best shit-eating science gremlin grin and answered Allura in her sweetest sing-song tone. "Well of course, it would be my pleasure, princess." She stuck out her tongue at Shiro and then the video feed for the green lion cut off and judging by the put-upon expression on Shiro's face, Green and Pidge had taken off to the castle already.

  
"A leader whose men will follow him my ass," he mumbled under his breath before his video feed cut off as well and switched to audio only, Black presumably getting ready to take off to the castle as well.

  
"Hey Red, you gonna wait for the two love birds to get off the floor?" Lance didn't have to see Hunk's face to know that he was grinning.

  
The floor under Lance's back vibrated and Red started to move of her own volition. "What are you talking about Hunk no one is lying on any floors."

  
"Yeah, bro, I totally believe you that Keith _didn't_ tackle you to the floor and snogged you silly the moment Blue tossed you over to Red."

  
"... Good. Because that is totally not what happened at all. Hey, is Noodle flying my baby girl by any chance?"

  
"If that's what you need me to believe, my man. Also, nice subject change." And that was the beauty of Hunk – he was back to being completely sincere, no hint of teasing left in his voice.

  
Keith, the heathen, of course didn't appreciate the pure cinnamon roll that was Hunk appropriately and snorted.

  
"Thanks bro." Lance put on his sunniest Hunk-smile and non-chalantly shoved Keith off of him to get up. Hunk would know even if he couldn't see him, because Hunk was awesome and intuitive like that. "But really, I'm curious. Is she?"

  
"I don't know. I mean, Red is kinda flying herself right now, too, isn't she?"

  
Considering that it felt a lot like they were moving rapidly towards the castle and Keith was still sitting on the ground next to him in her mouth, rubbing his elbow and sending betrayed glares up at Lance... Yeah, looked like it.

For a moment, Lance flashed back to the horrible few minutes earlier in the hangar, what felt like a life-time ago, when Noodle took control of him. A shudder crawled down his spine. Yeah, not sharing that with anyone, any time soon. Especially not with Keith, he was ready enough to throw Noodle out of the airlock as it was. Not that he could, going by what Lance had just witnessed. And not that that would stop Keith from trying by any means, that suspicious little mullet.

But yeah, Blue was probably more well-equipped to not be mind-whammied by Noodle. They seemed to have a solid thing going on there with how they loved to team up on him, anyway. So that was probably a thing he wouldn't have to worry about. Supposably.

“Well, good to know they can find back to the castle on their own, huh? If they ever have to.”

“Yeah, with the amount of times Keith gets thrown around in his seat during his more reckless stunts it's good to know Red will still be able to get him home if he ever does get knocked out.”

Keith's response was a mass of offended stuttering and flailing still down on the floor. Lance made a mental note to high-five Hunk as soon as they got back to the castle. Nothing quite like having his best bud gang up with him on one of his boyfriends, even if Hunk probably didn't actually do it on purpose and just meant to express a valid concern.

Much as Keith was flailing, he could not deny that Hunk had a point, not after the sheer stupidity that had been fighting Zarkon on his own. Or striding alone into a Galra base and blowing every attempt at subtle infiltration, for that matter.

Good thing Red had a thing for always finding her pilot when he needed her the most. So yeah, now that Lance was thinking about it, actually she always flew herself to wherever Keith was getting his ass handed because he had the impulse control of a gambling addict in a casino sometimes. So it stood to reason she could get them back, too.

There was an amused little hum from Blue in the back of his mind, a small pull to show him that yeah, of course she could fly herself if need be. But flying alone and fighting alone were two very different pairs of shoes, and without their paladins there was no hope of forming Voltron, so at the end of the day the lions flying themselves was reserved for special circumstances, mostly of the Absolute Emergency kind.

Lance turned around to Keith with his best shit-eating grin. “True. She already picks him up whenever he ends up floating around in space, after all.”

Shiro's low chuckles over the comm almost covered Keith's mumbled complaints. Lance raised an eyebrow at him but Keith refused to repeat himself at an audible volume, instead crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. He looked a little like a wet cat. A wet cat that had been playing in garbage beforehand and knew full well that it was its own fault that the horror that was bathing had to happen in the first place but was still pissed at you for daring to touch it with water.

It was terribly endearing and Lance was _weak_.

So obviously he just _had_ to drop down to his knees, straddling Keith and pulling his very reluctantly moving arms apart to press theatrically loud kisses all over his unfairly pretty face until he was blushing and let out the cutest giggling sound Lance had heard in his _life_. Shiro's small gasp was audible even over Hunk's amused huff and if Lance had to guess he would assume that maybe even Shiro had never been able to pull that kind of sound from Keith. A wave of adoration strong enough to threaten to keel him over washed through Lance and he breathed a laugh into Keith's hair – and wow, it was so soft and he would bet so much money on the fact that it had never been touched by anything other than shampoo. Which was totally unfair and why were Shiro and Keith going on so much about _his_ hair when Keith's was like straight out of a shampoo commercial apart from the unfortunate haircut???

“It's okay,” Lance crooned into his ear, the responding shiver he could feel going through Keith adding a more heated nuance to the overflowing adoration. “I'm glad she comes to pick you up to bring you back to us.”

Keith's only response was pulling Lance down by his hair and occupying his lips with his own in a kiss that was much less messy and harsh than their first attempt. Lance melted into it like ice on a July noon and didn't come back up for air until something knocked repeatedly on a metal surface. At which point he and Keith both noticed that apparently Red had landed and everyone else also seemed to be back in the hangar bay. As to who was knocking, that could have been anyone from their team. If anyone had tried to contact them via their comms neither of them had noticed, too busy kissing the living daylights out of each other – or at least that was what Lance assumed because Keith looked just as dazed as he felt when they finally pulled apart after the third impatient knock.

Red didn't give them a chance to say anything before she opened up for whoever was apparently annoying her thoroughly by knocking on her like that. Lance had barely turned his head before he was already tackled to the ground and off of Keith, a headband flapping into his face.

“Don't ever do that to me again, bro.” The part of his neck Hunk was mumbling into felt suspiciously warm and wet and there was a hitch in his voice Lance was all too familiar with.

“No, no, Hunk, bro, my buddy, my pal, please don't cry. You know I cry when you cry.” He tried to turn around in Hunk's arms to hug him back and maybe calm him down but Hunk just tightened his grip.

“Tough luck. Don't disappear on me like that and I won't have to cry on you. You've almost died on me _twice_. In less than a week. I had your blood on my hands and then I thought you _drowned_. You can get off this floor when I can trust that it's safe.”

Lance sniffled into Red's cold metal floor.

“My apologies, Hunk, but I think the rest of us want a turn before then.” With that, Coran gently pried a reluctant Hunk off of Lance's back and pulled him up and into a bear hug that reminded Lance too much of his dad to help with the constant flow of tears streaming down his cheeks at that point. “My boy, I'm so glad you're back with us and whole.”

Before Lance could find enough breath to say anything in reply between his now ugly-sobby tears he was handed over to Allura's firm embrace, the by now familiar smell of her hair, a cross between peaches and lavender he couldn't quite place, as soothing and grounding as Sofia's hands in his hair on a particularly bad day. “I agree with Hunk. Please don't do that to us again, none of us want to lose you.”

“Sure thing, Princess.” It came out sounding even more shaky than his legs felt in that moment. In the split moment before he was handed off into Shiro's strong arms he caught a glimpse of her smile, small but sincere, and he knew the effort it had taken to get the words out was more than worth it.

The moment Shiro had his hands on him Lance was gently, ever so gently, pulled into a kiss so soft it felt like their lips were flowing into each other rather than just moving against each other. There were two warm thumbs tenderly swiping the tears from his cheeks as Shiro's hands came up to cradle his face, one metal, one human. Lance got lost in it just as deeply as the more heated kisses with Keith had pulled him in and he only returned somewhat to reality when Coran cleared his throat very pointedly next to them.

“I'm very sorry to interrupt your moment,” Lance only listened with half an ear as his eyes met Shiro's as they pulled apart. The dreamy glaze was back in them and it sent a thrill through Lance to know that he seemed to have this kind of impact on both Keith _and_ Shiro. The disbelieving voice in the back of his mind that told him that this sounded too good to be true and also very fake was just rearing up its slew of self-deprecating arguments when what Coran was saying really started to filter in. “-suspicious that Number Five hasn't shown up yet. Do any of you know where she is?”

Shiro's eyes were still not leaving his and Lance could literally pinpoint the moment they sharpened from Just-kissed-my-new-boyfriend-silly to Fearless LeaderTM. “Last I heard from her she was going to pick up Noodle.”

Cold dread shot large holes in the clouds Lance's head had been in just seconds ago. He dug through his mind and was met with suspicious quiet, the likes of which he had only felt once since he had picked up a tiny glowing snake on a Galra ship what felt like eons ago.

Since that had been the moment Noodle had shut him out of his own body and Lance could barely make out the hum of his connection with Blue through the deafening non-entity of his link to her at that moment... Yeah, that didn't bide well for them.

The hangar's alarms reached them through Red's thick walls just as Shiro met his eyes again and a forehead pressed into his shoulder at the same time that another pair of strong arms wrapped tightly around his waist.

“This has got to stop happening to us.”

“You guys do have the worst timing,” Pidge agreed with the biggest, most terrifying grin on her face Lance had witnessed to that day. The effect wasn't helped by her current sitting position on top of one of Noodle's heads, looking in on them through Red's still-open mouth. “Eat each other's faces later, we have bigger fish to fry.” She turned her laptop around to them, frozen on what Lance could just so make out as a still of Matt Holt, looking more haggard and haunted than on the last recording they managed to get of him but otherwise intact. The gleam in Pidge's eyes was bordering on maniac and Lance swallowed hard. “I think I know where Matt is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I ended with a cliffhanger again. I will try my best not to make you wait anywhere near as long for the next chapter this time >.> And the next chapter will actually contain something like plot again, I swear xD Hopefully I can wrap this specific arc up before season 4 comes out and josses everything before I'm even done ;)


	10. Once upon a pool noodle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge knows where Matt is! Right to the daring rescue, right? Except, you know, they still have to get to where Matt is first. And maybe they shouldn't arrive completely exhausted and without a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who expected this chapter to be the daring rescue of Matt - sorry. I kinda expected that, too, but as I was writing it did dawn on me that everyone was very exhausted after the events of the last few chapters and just throwing them into the next dramatic plot point (and hooo boi, things are coming your way there, I have *ideas*) without a break was not a good idea for anyone involved.   
> At this point, due to a comment I received I want to use this space as a warning: For anyone who is reading this still somehow expecting a purely action and plot-driven story, THIS IS NOT WHAT THIS IS. There is plot and even action in-between, but it is mainly a story about relationships between the characters, diving into their different dynamics and how they grow closer and bond over the course of this story. And there is going to be a very heavy focus on the main pairing because I am first and foremost a romance writer. So to anyone who doesn't want to read that, my apologies. This is self-indulgence at its best, here there be cute romance and lengthy friendship bonding guided by a plot that is driven by Noodle but doesn't revolve entirely around her. Be warned and don't complain at me ;)

**Once upon a pool noodle**

 

“Is there a reason Noodle is being a giant multi-headed snake again right now?” Hunk looked torn between wanting to grab the laptop and look more closely for himself and the need to back as far away from the possibly multi-dimensional space snake.

Pidge shrugged, utterly unfazed by the fact that she was sitting on top of a writhing, uncountable mass of snake heads each the size of a car. Well, most of them, from what Lance could see. Which was a lot more than what he'd been able to see in the depth of the ocean with only his suit lights and Noodle's own glowing markings as sources of light. There were smaller snake appendages and bigger snake appendages and all of them were in constant movement and hard to pin down with the bare eye.

To be honest, it was a tad bit more terrifying in the bright neon lights of the castle, without the comfort of the water surrounding them, giving their souls a common frequency. Like this, Noodle seemed distant, untouchable, the much scarier Indian goddess cousin of Nessie. It didn't help that their connection felt temporarily severed, like there was just a blank where there should be something. And how exactly had he gotten used to yet another presence invading his mind at all times? Could you have Stockholm Syndrome for giant god-like space snakes that were dead set on protecting and loving you?

But that was besides the point, because regardless of whether it was healthy or sane, Lance _had_ gotten used to it and he was not planning on letting Noodle go anytime soon. So that only left getting used to the giant god-like space snake setting up a home in the corner of your mind and judging you from the cheap seats. When she's not laughing at you. Or throwing metaphorical popcorn at the metaphorical screen of his perception of the world or- okay, so that one had gotten away from him a little bit.

About three things Lance was absolutely positive, despite his wandering thoughts.

First, Noodle was a terrifying space snake goddess. Second, a part of her – and Lance didn't know how potent that part might be – could control minds and ransack space castles with the help of robots. Third, she had like five hundred heads. Like, seriously, he'd lost count at this point, he'd come to about fifty and then realized that it was pointless because they all kept moving and crossing over and under each other and it was an undulating, uncountable mess. But Lance was unconditionally and irrevocably connected with her, anyway, and he loved her to pieces, even if her true form in full power gave him a bit of a migraine.   
Which is how he instinctively knew what was wrong in that picture.  
"- and Noodle managed to pick a few surprisingly intact hard drives from underwater and brought them to me after she deposited Lance with Keith. So of course I sifted through them as soon as we touched down in the castle and I could get my hands on my equipment and I found him! Guys I found him, I found Matt!" Pidge's eyes shone with giddy determination, a little on the maniac side and she was practically vibrating in place with aimless energy. Lance hated to be the one to distract her from this moment, but Pidge had the others to look out for her. But there was someone in this equation who didn't and Lance was the only one who would speak up on her behalf.  
"I am very happy for you, Pidge, and we will immediately set course for whatever coordinates I am sure you have for us." Allura smiled as brightly as expected, but it didn't reach her eyes quite as completely as Lance would have thought. He wasn't sure if the others noticed, apart from maybe Coran, but there was definitely something on her mind casting a shadow over her happiness for Pidge, a little crease in her brow that looked out of place. "But may I ask why Noodle is in what I assume is her true form? She still has not recovered entirely from the ordeal that was her captivity under the Galra, I'm sure some rest would be better for her."  
Okay, so maybe Noodle had two people speaking on her behalf after all. Lance shot Allura a grateful smile that she returned in kind, the corner of her mouth twitching up into an almost-grin.   
"Oh, she helped me hack into a Galra server a few galaxies over and she could only strengthen the frequency of my communications enough in this form, so-"  
"Hey, Pidge?" Lance finally stepped forward, gently extracting himself from Shiro's arms and maneuvering Keith into his spot instead. "Could you come a little closer and show us in more detail?"   
"Of course!" In one fluid motion Noodle moved the head carrying her forward and Pidge jumped into Red's mouth, her laptop clutched to her chest. Lance side-stepped her where she landed neatly, eyes not leaving Noodle's as he stopped as close to the edge of Red's maw as he dared, hand outstretched wordlessly, palm up. Slowly, almost sluggishly, Noodle moved her (main?) head until it gently rested on his palm as much as it could.   
Lance watched with wide eyes as Noodle's markings started glowing bright blue the moment they touched, the sound of ocean waves crashing against the shore roaring in his ears as their connection clicked back into place. Like the first breath on the water planet after almost drowning, a straining, searing pain rushing through him, immediately followed by the sweet release of soothing cold liquid and something that felt like... peace maybe? Lance couldn't quite put words to the feelings, just knew that they weren't his own. The blue glow coming off of Noodle was almost eclipsing every other source of light in the hangar now and then he was back to cradling a tiny, exhausted space snake in his palm. The weight of Noodle's tiredness made him stagger a little, a hand just barely catching the back of his armor to pull him back from the edge. Disoriented, Lance turned around to look into Shiro's concerned face, everyone else huddled behind him with wide, worried eyes.   
Coran twirled his mustache absentmindedly as he studied Lance intently, his eyes only briefly slipping down to where he was cradling Noodle in the palm of his hand. "It would seem that your connection is a lot stronger than even I would have anticipated." He gave Lance an honest smile, giving the left end of his mustache one last finishing tug. With an (actually subtle) wink he sneakily placed himself behind Keith, silencing him with a gentle hand on his shoulder when he opened his mouth to undoubtedly call slander on Noodle again.  
Allura pushed past the paladins and gently guided Shiro to the side so she could bent down to be on eye-level with Noodle.   
"Noodle, I hope you are unharmed and well?"    
She flinched a second later and Lance was relieved that Noodle hadn't tried to hide her state from Allura.   
"You should be resting!" She looked around the group huddled around Pidge, eyes still wide. "All of you should be, really. This was an exhausting battle for all of us, not just on a physical but also on an emotional level." She gave Keith and Shiro an indulgent smile. Pidge opened her mouth to no doubt protest but Allura held up a hand to silence her.  
"I know you are not going to be able to rest until you know we are on our way to your brother's location. Coran, you and I will work together to bring the castle on course, _and then we will rest, too_." She gave Pidge a stern look that reminded Lance of this one kindergarten teacher he had never been able to make his mind up about, the one that could be as kind and sweet as she was strict and scary. To his surprise, Pidge actually closed her mouth and nodded in acknowledgment.   
"Thank you, Pidge. No one will benefit if we arrive in a state unfit for combat. I have hopes we might be able to avoid too much direct confrontation, but I don't assume we will be able to break out a prisoner entirely unnoticed. I am sure at this point Zarkon or Haggar have made the connection, Matt might be well-guarded."  
"And if he's not I bet it's a trap," Keith grumbled to himself, being gracefully ignored by everyone but Shiro who put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.   
"Allura is right, Number 5." Coran twirled his mustache between his thumb and his forefinger, gazing off into the middle distance. "This mission will require careful planning. Careful planning we cannot guarantee when we are running on exhaustion and, how did this Earthling saying go, fumes? Anyway, we need to be well-rested so we can think clearly and act swiftly. We wouldn't want a badly planned attempt to save your brother end up harming him further or lead to him being removed to somewhere else again, do we?"  
Instead of replying Pidge just grabbed her laptop tighter and stomped out of the hangar bay, presumably in the direction of the command center, furiously grumbling something indecipherable that they were probably better off not understanding.   
"At least she didn't try to rip anyone's head off for suggesting some sleep?" Hunk shrugged, brows drawn together as his gaze followed Pidge out of the hangar bay.   
"I'm sure she will come around to the idea once she has found some rest." Allura bit her lip briefly, then turned back to the rest of the team. "You should all go to your quarters and try to find some sleep."  
"How are you going to convince Pidge to actually sleep, though?" Lance's eyes were still glued to the entrance to the hangar bay where Pidge had disappeared only seconds earlier, fingers moving restlessly over Noodle's back. "Unless you have some Altean sleep meds to knock her out with I don't see that happening."  
"Maybe I should talk to her." Everyone turned around to Shiro at once in creepy almost-unison. Shiro, bless his leader-y heart, didn't even flinch a little and gave them his best 'everything will be alright' smile, even if it was a little wobbly at the corners. "I think she might be more prone to listen to me. I am the only one with a vested personal interest of my own to find her brother." He swallowed hard. "Matt was my friend. I never wanted to leave him behind. Or Professor Holt."  
"You did your best to protect him." Keith had shaken off Shiro's hand on his shoulder at some point, now returning the gesture in kind. If the moment hadn't been so serious the way Keith had to reach up for that would have been hilarious.   
Lance stood frozen in his spot, not sure if he was allowed to comfort the same way Keith was. Shiro, for all that he was a wonderful leader and a giving person to a fault, could be very peculiar about his personal space bubble. Understandable, if you asked Lance, considering the whole traumatizing Galra captivity and the fight-for-your-life-for-entertainment thing.   
Noodle decided to kick his self-doubt between the legs with the mental image of Shiro's face when they had noticed that Lance was gone during the battle on the water planet, probably plucked from someone's memory of a vid communication and oh. Yeah. Right, Shiro loved him, too, for some unfathomable reason – his touch would probably be welcome.   
Keith seemed to think so, too, by the way he seemed to try to glare Lance into action. Hesitantly, Lance stepped forward, carefully putting his hand on Shiro's human arm, projecting every last move as if Shiro might flinch away at any second. Once his hand finally came to rest, Shiro offered him an absentminded smile and put his own hand over Lance's, lacing their fingers together without a second thought. Lance's heart beat hard in his chest, Shiro's skin much softer than he had anticipated, apart from the expected callouses. The way their skin colors contrasted against each other and the reassuring squeeze of Shiro's fingers laced through his own were a nice distraction from the mind-reeling revelation that Shiro trusted him to be there for him when he was vulnerable.  
"We're going to find them. Both of them. For Pidge, if nothing else."  
Everyone nodded enthusiastically to that, even Noodle, who promptly slumped back into Lance's palm like an overcooked piece of spaghetti. Regretfully, Lance pulled his hand away from Shiro again to better cradle her against his chest and coo soothingly at her. When he looked up again with wide, guilty eyes, Shiro gave him an indulgent smile, his shoulders no longer quite as firmly military-straight.

“I'm going to try to talk to Pidge.” He carefully moved out of Keith's hold, much to Keith's pouting displeasure, and walked to the stairs leading out of Red. Very slowly and very gravely. Lance tried very hard to not hum the funeral march accompanying the whole scene in his head out loud.

“Good luck!” Hunk shouted gleefully, the elation of not having to deal with this particular minefield lighting up his face for a second before he turned back to Lance, his expression turning blank in a way that made Lance's stomach churn with guilt.

“You.” He poked Lance right in the sternum, with enough force to just slightly unbalance him. “You are going to stay where I can see you and feed you and make sure you're really not dead for at least an hour or two.”

Lance let himself fall forward with a groan, unsurprised when Hunk casually caught him in a hug that managed to feel both like a blanket cocoon and not crush Noodle between them. Hunk just was _that_ good at hugs. “If you feed me, you can stand next to me with a pair of binoculars for all I care. I just have to get Noodle to somewhere with a lot of water first.”

“Well, lucky for you that Pidge and I finished tuning the gravity field generator. The pool is now right side up.” He laughed into Lance's ear when his only reply was a happy groan, gently petting the back of his head for a moment before he started dragging Lance along with an arm around his waist, still half-hugging him to his side.

“And you are coming, too.” Hunk nonchalantly used his free hand to drag Keith along by his elbow, ignoring his faint protests. “Princess, Coran, you better get to work if you don't want Pidge to bite your heads off when she finds out we're still not closer to Matt.”

Lance lifted his head from its comfortable spot on Hunk's shoulder long enough to see Allura and Coran scurry in very undignified haste. When he turned his head to muffle his exhausted giggling into the soft fabric of Hunk's shirt his gaze met Keith's, who was watching him like a hawk from Hunk's other side, and the giggle turned into a pout.

“Oh come on, man.” He dug his chin into Hunk's shoulder to better be able to peer at Keith. Hunk pinched him into the side none-too-gently. It made Lance squeak, even through the armor, and he swore Keith and Hunk were exchanging very malevolent grins with each other. When he narrowed his eyes at them they were already back to looking into different directions, though, so he couldn't be too sure. Hunk would never betray his trust and gang up on him with Keith, right? If Hunk ever shared even half of his knowledge of Lance's weak spots with Keith, Lance was done for. Shiro might be a fair sport and wouldn't use that knowledge against Lance too much, but _Keith_? Lance huddled closer into Hunk's side, in a pathetic attempt to remind him who had been his best friend since high school.

But yeah, who was he kidding, Hunk would totally gang up with Keith. He wouldn't tell him _everything_ , of course. Not any deep dark secrets or anything. But there was probably an anatomically correct map with all of Lance's most ticklish spots being drawn somewhere in the back of Hunk's mind right now, to be divulged to Keith in bits and pieces whenever Lance managed to piss Hunk off. By repeatedly almost dying on him, for example.

Lance decided to let the matter rest after minimal whining noises at the mere thought of that horrifying future, undoubtedly lying before him. Noodle didn't admonish him for being an overdramatic mess who deserved the cruel punishment of tickles for almost dying on everyone twice in one week. They really needed to get to that pool, and soon.

But in the meantime, nothing better to distract himself from the memory of the look on Pidge's face earlier, or poor Shiro's current fate, or the limp slump of Noodle in his palm, or the prospect of having to break into a probably heavily guarded Galra prison camp really really soon...

“Hey, Keith, are you going to watch me like a guard dog all night?”

Keith glared at him from around Hunk's shoulder. “Yes. If that's what it takes to keep you in one piece. Have to make sure you're not drowning in the pool.”

The sheer affront of the implication that Lance was anything less than a stellar swimmer fueled him enough to actually lift his head. “Excuuuse me? Do you know what they used to call me back on Varadero beach? The _mermaid_ , that's right, because of how I'm pure grace and elegance as soon as I'm in the water! You will be drooling at the pool-side, just you wait!”  
Hunk was huffing into Lance's hair at that point, trying to muffle his guffawing.

“Are you sure that wasn't just because of your mermaid obsession?” Keith raised an eyebrow in a decidedly unimpressed way. “Or that one time when you were sixteen and dressed up as Ariel for Halloween?”

“Hunk!!” Lance almost fell flat on his face with how fast he tried to untangle himself from Hunk's hold. “How could you? Have you been blabbing my deepest darkest secrets to everyone on this ship?? How could you betray my trust like this??” Lance was forced to walk half-backwards during his appropriately outraged speech, just barely avoiding stepping on the mice who had decided that now was a really good time to come out of their hide-y corners and chase each other around his feet. He could have sworn they were laughing at him. There was a high-pitched, giggle-y noise coming from _somewhere_ at least, he was definitely not making this up. “You probably even told the mice!”

“Lance, I would never!” Hunk was grinning way too broadly at Lance for someone who had just committed treason, one hand still gripping Lance's arm to keep him balanced when he would inevitably trip over the mice. Or his own exhausted feet. “Besides, the mice already know all your secrets because they're spying on us for Allura.”

Lance came to a screeching halt, mouth gaping open and eyes widening until they were about to fall out of his face. _The mice did what now??_ Lance's traitor brain gave him a rapid slide-show of all the embarrassing moments on the ship where he'd thought ' _phew, good thing there's only the mice here, that would have been really humiliating if anyone had seen this',_ now stained in a new, horror-movie-worthy lighting, accompanied by the 'you died' soundtrack of his favorite video games.

Thankfully, Lance was only briefly trapped in his musings of this horrible new reality he was now stuck with – and granted, his crush on Allura faded into insignificance next to how positively _gone_ he was for Keith and Shiro, who actually liked him back apparently, but it was _Allura_. Everyone wanted to impress Allura, no one wanted to look dumb in front of her graceful princessness. Except Allura seemed to want to know all of their dumb secrets and was _spying_ on them, with the help of _mice_ , like some kind of evil mastermind Cinderella with cool telekinetic abilities.

What saved him before his thoughts could spiral further out of control was the return of the tinkling high-pitched giggle sound, turning louder and louder until it was an outright laugh. Because it was then that Lance finally noticed that no, it was not the mice producing that squeal-y noise.

It was _Keith_. Keith who had laughed at Lance the entire time, probably knowing all along about this because despite his awesome sharpshooter observational skills Lance was somehow still always the last one to know these kinds of things. No, not laughed. _Giggled_. Keith had giggled at him for at least a solid minute and Lance wanted to be offended, oh how did he ever want to huff and dramatically yell. But Keith's giggle sounded like someone stepped on a squeaky toy and it was terrible and also terribly _endearing_ and Lance might or might not have melted into a puddle on the floor at this realization. Hunk's hand on his arm was all that was keeping him in human shape and he was too _busy_ dealing with this new existential crisis to build up righteous anger over his friends laughing their asses of at his expense.

When he looked down at the floor to make sure he hadn't stepped on any of Allura's little friends, he noticed that one of the mice, the big round one, was patting his ankle with a sympathetic expression. Lance offered it a cracking smile. “Thanks, lil' buddy.” Noodle huffed weakly into his palm and that got Lance moving again, now dragging a still laughing Hunk behind him instead of the other way round. There was no one laughing at him in his mind, no mirth coming through. If Noodle was too weak to make fun of Lance's lack of observational skills this was much closer to an emergency than he'd realized.

Only when they actually arrived at the pool, Hunk and Keith still giggling intermittently while trying to calm down enough to have a conversation again, did Lance realize that they were missing something essential.

“Guys?” He let go of Hunk and approached the water, gently slipping Noodle in. For a moment Lance's heart leaped into his throat as she just sank like a stone, body still limp, but her markings started to glow bright enough to light up the entire impressive size of the pool before she even hit the ground. Lance blinked and she was already across the whole length of it and on her way back, zooming through the water like a dolphin on speed. Lance smiled down at the rippling surface, the sound of ocean waves crashing into the shore back in his mind, tugging at him to join, to be in the water, too. He turned back to his friends, no longer laughing but gaping at the pool with wide eyes. “Guys, did anyone else notice that we're missing something here?”

Keith scrunched his brow in an infuriatingly cute way as he pondered that question. Hunk's face lit up with realization almost immediately. “Oh shit, man.” He grimaced down at his armor. “No trunks, of course. You know I love you, man, but I'm not going to go skinny-dipping with you, one of your boyfriends _and_ a terrifying water goddess snake that can manipulate tech with her mind. No offense, Noodle.” He clapped Keith on the shoulder with a magnanimous air that had Lance's heart swell with pride. “Guess you will have to hold out here until I'm back with food and swimwear, buddy. Keep an eye on him for me, would you?” And then he was gone, leaving a very pale Keith at Lance's mercy.

If anyone were to ask if Lance had grinned like a shark in that moment, he would have vehemently denied the very possibility.

“Don't you want to come a little closer, Keith?” Lance could feel his grin slipping into Joker-territory as he carefully started stripping off his armor. “The water doesn't bite.”

Keith risked an uneasy look in Noodle's direction, pupils flying from left to right as he tried to track her movements. “I...”

“Afraid of the water?” Lance threw the breast plate over his shoulder to land on a nearby lounge chair with a flourish. “How will you keep me from being drowned by the evil sea snake from way over there?” He raised an eyebrow at him. So screw him, he could be petty even if it was starting to dawn him just how adorable Keith would actually turn out to be now that he was starting to let his guard down in front of Lance. And just how not equipped to deal with that amount of adorableness Lance actually was. If Shiro started being this precious in private as well Lance should start planning the specifics of his funeral. He definitely wanted a parade, that much was clear.

There was a loud huff and the disquieting feeling of someone else rolling their eyes inside of his mind and Lance's heart beat easier.

“I have every right to be suspicious.” Keith pouted like a pre-schooler whose favorite toy was just confiscated. “We still don't know what exactly happened to you when you were under the surface. She can influence our minds, she kinda weirdly mind-melded with you, she can control the castle – do you remember the last time something else controlled the castle? We nearly _died_.” Keith crossed his arms over his chest, hair flopping into his eyes. Lance huffed at him and threw the last piece of his armor, his left boot, in his direction. It bounced off of Keith's right shin plate with a faint pling.

“And she also saved my life. _Repeatedly_. So she is crazy powerful and essentially an ocean goddess. Allura can create wormholes and shapeshift and mind-meld with spying mice.” He glared at the offending spies in question. The tallest mouse just shrugged at him in a 'what can you do' kind of way. Lance guessed they were right. “Still doesn't mean she's evil. Just as Noodle isn't evil. You gotta differentiate, man. You're half Galra, that doesn't make you evil. Hell, who knows, Zarkon probably wasn't born the incarnation of evil, either, if he piloted Black before. Just because someone is born a certain way doesn't mean they're automatically good or evil.”

Keith's pout intensified, a slight flush starting to climb up his cheeks as Lance started to oh so casually strip out of his black cat suit-thingy as well. “I know that. I'm not saying she's evil because she's an all-powerful ocean snake. I'm saying it's suspicious that there are a lot of important facts she just glossed over. She has become way too attached to you way too quickly, and I'm not comfortable with how far she has wormed her way into your mind. Or this team. We don't know her true motives.”

Lance stopped rolling down the clingy suit material, his upper body completely free now. “What motives are you looking for? Isn't the fact that Zarkon probably destroyed her planet and definitely killed most of her fellow ocean life enough? Or that he kept her his prisoner for thousands of years? That's more reason than we actually have to fight him, you know.” He dipped his hand into the water and Noodle came up to nudge it and tug playfully at his pinky finger before zooming away again. He pulled his hand back out to push at the bunched up fabric around his hips, wiggling his eyebrows at Keith. “Or are you just jealous of our connection? Now that I know that you are actually possessive of all of this-” he gestured grandly down his body and Keith flushed a hilarious shade of red as his gaze followed Lance's hand - “it's very understandable that you don't like anyone taking up so much of my attention. Now, I can't let you into my mind, but I _can_ let you into my-”

“Enough!” Keith turned on his heel, his back to Lance and staring at the wall instead just as Lance made to push the fabric over his hips in an awkward shuffle because he couldn't be bothered to stand up. The tips of Keith's ears were very visibly red from where Lance was sitting. “I get it, keep your- your stupid pick-up lines to yourself. You don't have to lure me into dating you, I'm _already_ dating you.” His shoulders expanded as he huffed. “And I'm not _jealous_ of a sea snake.”

“Sure you aren't.” Lance bent forward to tug the suit off his foot. “And hell yeah you are.” The suit made a satisfying flopping noise when it landed on Keith's head. Keith turned around, glaring and sputtering, the fight immediately going out of him as his eyes landed on Lance's bare legs, widened and stopped moving entirely. He seemed to notice his lapse when Lance started presenting said legs as if he were in a Venus Gillette commercial and turned back around, even redder than before.

Maybe Lance should start worrying about Keith's blood pressure at this point, but it was just too much fun to rile him up. Also, so so gratifying to have this effect on someone. And on Keith, of all people. Keith who always acted so aloof and cooler-than-you. Who was actually just a giant dork and turned into a stutter-y, blushing mess when confronted with Lance's bare legs even though he had been dating the sex on legs that was Shiro for _months_ and gotten up to who knows what with him. If Shiro was going to get that same wide-eyed wonder look he got when he had patted Lance's hair earlier over the rest of him, then Lance might actually need someone to deflate his ego soon.

Of course, that was the exact moment Hunk chose to come back into the room, already in his own bright yellow trunks, a blue and a red pair slung over his shoulder and arms laden with food. He took one look at the scene and grinned.

“If that's already getting you so flustered you should wait until he gets his hands on a razor. Lance's shaved mermaid legs are deadly.”

Keith made a choked, squeaky noise worthy of a squirrel and Lance laughed so hard he fell into the pool. He inhaled in shocked reflex but before he could start to choke Noodle was next to him, now the size of a regular Garter snake, soothingly wrapping around his shoulders, her markings shifting and glowing even brighter for a moment. The water in his lungs turned into oxygen and he took another greedy breath of pool water, his delighted laughter turning into a shower of bubbles rising to the surface. Lance stayed under just a little longer, enjoying the feeling of being able to _breathe water, holy shit, this is awesome_. Thinking of the horrified faces of his teammates earlier he resisted the urge to sink to the bottom and just _be_ , one with his element, connected through Noodle's snake goddess powers.

When his head broke through the water again Hunk was sitting on the edge a few feet away from him, dangling his feet in and grinning through a mouthful of pink alien fruit. There was a veritable buffet spread around him, all along the edge of the pool so Lance wouldn't have to get out.

“Hunk, have I told you recently that I love you? You're a genius engineer, my bro. Thanks for turning the pool right side up and bless you for this.” Lance hugged Hunk's leg and then dug into the food like a starving man. Both of them dutifully ignored Keith, who had been hopping closer to the pool on one foot, cat suit clinging to that one, the other leg already in his trunks. He had crashed into one of the lounge chairs in an undignified tangle of limbs upon Lance's reappearance and was still fighting with the mess of fabric.

“So Keith immediately started stripping to come to my rescue and you just sat down and arranged a buffet?” Lance grinned at Hunk around his mouthful of slightly more solid food goo with some kind of alien nut. With a bit of fantasy it was just like pudding.

Hunk shrugged at him, handing him a piece of a neon blue alien fruit that looked like it should be deadly but actually just kinda tasted like pineapple crossed with cucumber.

“Nah, dude. Noodle would never let you drown. That's a cool trick, by the way. Can she make people breathe underwater? That could be super useful.”

Noodle sent him a very pointed image of himself – and man was it weird to see yourself through someone else's perspective. “Sorry, bro. Seems like it's just working for me. You know, because of the mind-meld.” He wiggled his eyebrows exaggeratedly at Keith, who had finally plopped down next to Hunk in just his trunks, hair ruffled. Keith threw a piece of pinecumberple at Lance's head. It missed by an inch and landed in the water, where it was quickly snatched up by Noodle, who sent Lance a pleased rumble. Keith narrowed her eyes at her.

“I thought she only needed water. And has she gotten bigger again? Why is she bigger, shouldn't she conserve energy and rest?”

Lance propped himself up on his elbows next to Keith. “Aww, look at you, feeding her and being worried that she's not resting enough. Who knew, you're a mother hen after all, Keithy boy.” Lance leaned over his lap to snatch up a piece of orange-purple pizza fruit (it mostly just tasted of tomato and oregano) Hunk was holding out to him. Naturally, Keith took that as an opportunity to shove him back into the water.

They went on like this until most of the food was gone. Lance finally got rid of his sogging wet underwear and put on his trunks, immediately tugging Hunk into the water for a brief swim despite his protests of 'No, Lance, you're supposed to wait an hour after a meal!'. Keith refused to get into the water while Noodle was in, but didn't actually pull his foot away when he finally dared to dip his feet in and Noodle immediately nudged him. He even nudged back and started some weird kind of underwater thumb war between his big toe and Noodle's head. (Needless to say, Noodle won. Keith claimed it was cheating because he didn't have magic snake goddess water powers.)

When it became clear that neither Lance nor Noodle could be moved away from the pool anytime soon without screaming protest Hunk pulled over three of the lounge chairs until they were at the verge of toppling into the water. They wrapped themselves up in the comfy bathrobes hanging over the chairs and Lance immediately claimed the one in the middle, spreading out all over Hunk and Keith, foot hanging over the ledge a bit so that Noodle could touch him whenever she wanted.

They fell asleep to the soft sound of small waves lapping at the edge of the pool and the shifting, reflected lights of Noodle's markings drawing pictures on the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will actually contain Matt's rescue! (Or is it going to be a rescue?) And be partially from Shiro's POV, so keep your fingers crossed for me. If it's suddenly not in his POV after all I messed up and it didn't work out, so pray for me.


	11. Bad vibes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Matt has been found. Except rescuing him will at the same time be less terrible and so much worse than expected. Conclusion: People should listen to Lance more often- if they have the luxury of choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyho, I still live! Sorry that it took so long, again, after I promised in the last chapter that I wouldn't go so long without posting again. I'm still extremely busy all the time and it didn't help that I wrote myself into a corner for the longest while before I just finally managed to write through it. I guess in exchange you're getting the longest chapter yet? >.< I hope it doesn't feel too disjointed, I wrote large chunks here and there in one go with weeks passing between said chunks. I tried to edit it into a smooth flow but I'm not so sure I managed .  
> Now here we go, enjoy some Shiro POV!

Shiro approached the command center with trepidation. He had wanted everyone to believe that he was sure of what he was doing, that he could handle this. But really he didn't know how Katie would react at all, if she would even accept his presence in that moment at all. He hoped she would, because right now Shiro could really use someone to share his worry over Matt, and no one else would get it quite as much as Katie would, for obvious reasons.

 

Standing in front of the automatic doors, just far enough out of reach of the sensors so they wouldn't open before he was ready, he took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose with the thumb and forefinger of his human hand, the galra prosthetic clenched at his hip in distaste. Now, even more than usual, it was an unwelcome reminder of what he'd had to live through, what he left Matt behind in.

 

Keith... Keith didn't quite get it. For all that he was very in tune with Shiro's moods and a much more empathetic partner than most would give him credit for, he was also a deeply practical soul. The prosthetic was useful, it kept Shiro functional and even gave him additional advantages, so it was good in Keith's books. He knew that Shiro still had hang-ups about it and on a rational level Keith was aware that Shiro's hatred for it was based, very rightfully so, on the fact that the galra empire had made him fight for his life for sport, had experimented on him and taken a part of him to replace it with something of theirs, something tainted.

 

Keith could relate to a degree, seeing as he'd had to come to terms with his own galra heritage. The difference was, the blade of Marmora was a sign of rebellion. A gift from a mother who had obviously tried to take down Zarkon in her own ways. Shiro's 'gift' from the galra was forced upon him, was a violation done with probably still undiscovered malicious intentions.

 

Keith would be able to look past it, to ignore it and appreciate the arm for the practical advantage. That was how he functioned, how he survived. It was not how Shiro dealt with it, if he was dealing at all. Mostly he was suppressing and pushing away. He had no time for a breakdown, there was a universe out there that needed to be saved from experiencing a similar or even worse fate. He had a team to be strong for, to lead.

 

That was the part of him that Keith got on a deep level. And that was the reason that right now, trying to think of a way to get through to Katie without making matters worse, trying to come up with something to say to Matt if they could indeed rescue him... Shiro didn't want Keith with him right now. He wanted Lance.

 

For all that he had never been forced to live through the hardships Keith or Shiro had – and thank God for that – Lance was more intuitive about certain things. Keith kept touching the prosthetic as he would Shiro's regular arm, convinced that if Shiro just got used to it and started treating it the same he would get over his problems. And maybe that was the way to go, maybe he just had to power through the discomfort and the disassociation that came with seeing Keith's hand on something so foreign, something so maleficent that was attached to his body and that he couldn't just get rid of because it was too goddamn _useful_.

 

Maybe that was the right approach but there was an endless well of appreciation in him for the way Lance had picked up on his hesitancy and taken to only, ever so carefully, touch him on his human arm. Right now he really, really wanted Lance to hold his human hand and look up at him with those blue, blue eyes and that soft smile and tell a story about Coran chasing around Pidge because she'd used his special mustache wax as lubrication for one of her machines yet again. He wanted exaggerated eyelash fluttering and a silly pick-up line about particle barriers.

 

He wanted to not be the responsible leader, not to have to put on the brave and serious face, for just a second.

 

But Lance was back in the hangar with the others and no one else could do this. Quiznak, he himself needed this as much as Katie did.

 

So Shiro did what he always did, took a deep breath and marched on until the doors to the command center opened and Katie's furious gaze on him didn't leave him a choice anymore.

 

Neither of them said a word, but with every step Shiro took towards her it was more painfully obvious that the anger was nothing more than a cracking veneer, an attempt to keep herself together somehow and not come apart. She stopped looking at him when he sank down to sit next to her on the floor.

 

“You know they are not mad at you, right?” She fiddled with some kind of antenna on her equipment that might be for better picking up frequencies. Shiro had no idea what half of the things she had built since they had arrived at the castle of lions even were. He'd thought he'd met the biggest, brightest brains in the Holt family, and then Katie had been thrown at him by fate's twisted humor.

 

“But you also know that we do need the rest. And a plan. And even if we collectively decided to go in sleep-deprived and planless, it would still take us some time to get there.”

 

Katie heaved a deep sigh and slumped in on herself.

 

“I know,” she mumbled, into her knees, hugging them to her chest. “I know that, it's just... I finally _found_ him, Shiro. He's finally somewhere I can reach. I can do something about it. No one _gets_ it.”

 

Shiro rested his arm on her shoulder – so, so small, way too small to be carrying so much weight. None of them were built for it. Sometimes Shiro wondered if there actually was anyone who could shoulder all this responsibility and stand it. “I do. I know it's still different for you, but I do feel the same, on a smaller scale.”

 

Katie sniffled into her knees and then abruptly cuddled into his chest with all the finesse of an overgrown puppy welcoming its owner back. Shiro barely caught himself before they toppled over, snorting into her hair at himself for not expecting exactly that. He readjusted his weight to balance them on the galra arm and carefully draped the other around her small form.

 

They stayed that way for a while, Katie letting it all out and Shiro wishing he still had the ability to do the same, to just cuddle into someone and let it all go.

 

“Shiro?” Katie's voice cut through the silence that had settled over them like a blanket once she had run out of tears. “Thanks.”

  
“Of course. Is there anything else I can do for you?” She smiled at him, the puffy redness around her eyes magnified by the glasses. She looked so small and vulnerable and young in that moment and Shiro's heart was breaking for her, for what she had been thrown into, what they all had been burdened with.

 

And then the smile turned into a smirk and the glasses slipped down her nose a bit and caught the light in a way too deliberate fashion to be casual. “How honorable of you, Takashi. But shouldn't you be spending quality time with your _boyfriends_?” She wiggled her eyebrows at him.

 

He rolled his eyes at her and flicked her nose as he pushed her glasses back up. The corners of his mouth twitched up into an involuntary smile. “I have no idea what you are talking about. As the very serious leader of this group I clearly have no time for such frivolities.”

 

Katie batted at his arm, giggling to herself, when a frantic beeping noise from one of the machines surrounding them disrupted the peace. Katie jumped onto her keyboard before Shiro could even blink, checking five different screens and mumbling to herself, in full-on Pidge mode. Shiro leaned over her shoulder and tried to figure out what was happening but the numbers were moving too fast for his eyes to track. The irritated twitch of Pidge's shoulder that wouldn't stop until he backed off a little didn't help.

 

“So, what does the beeping mean?”

 

“That's what I'm trying to find _out._ ” She hummed to herself. “There seems to be some kind of code in the broadcasted frequencies from that station. It looks familiar but I don't know-” The device she'd been holding fell to the floor with a loud clunk and she just – stopped.

 

“Katie?” Shiro approached her carefully, not sure if a reassuring touch would be welcome right now.

 

“It's... Shiro I think it's _their_ code.”She looked at him with wide eyes. Or more accurately, right through him into space as the lightning-fast cogs in her brain almost visibly rattled on.

 

“I... I think you lost me there, Pidge.”

 

That seemed to shock her out of it. “Dad and Matt. They had a code they used to send secret messages to each other during missions when Dad was technically not allowed to contact Earth. Quantum frequencies that told them where to look in this book they both had and-” She stopped herself at the no doubt not very comprehending look on his face. “Just, they had a complicated double encryption system so no one would be able to read their messages even if they intercepted them and had part of the cypher. Additions and subtractions they remembered...” She trailed off, ignoring Shiro entirely in favor of scrambling for the device she had dropped and pulling something up on it.

 

“These numbers. They make no sense. Why would a prison ship broadcast a random set of numbers that don't fit into any of the galra messaging patterns?” Her fingers were scrolling and typing so fast they looked almost blurry.

 

“Maybe it's just a pattern you haven't encountered yet? I don't want to say it's impossible but-”

 

“No.” He'd never seen her look this sure of anything. “I have been watching and sifting through galra communications for months now, Shiro. Flag ships, prison camps, supply and cargo ships – I've seen every kind of code they use, there has been nothing unusual since I figured them all out _months_ ago. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this coming from any of their ships. Do you really think it's coincidence I find this on the one ship that had my brother on board?”

 

Shiro wisely shut his mouth and just let her type.

 

“I... Shiro, I think these are coordinates!” Katie was back to vibrating in her seat. She looked so much like Matt had right before they had stepped out of the space ship and onto Kerberos for the first time that for a moment Shiro was almost back on that mission, in a more peaceful time. “The ship is broadcasting coordinates in Matt's code, that must mean-”

 

“Greetings, paladins.” Coran's voice cut off whatever Katie had been about to say. “We have been able to work on the code Noodle has gracefully provided to us as well and there has been a joyous development! It would seem that the prison ship that matches the coordinates Noodle and Number Five managed to extract was freed by the rebel forces months ago-”

 

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a squeal from Katie that rivaled the one time Lance had accidentally stepped on one of the mice's tails. Shiro had money on the higher one being Lance's.

 

“He's alive!” She took Shiro by the shoulders and shook him so hard his teeth rattled. “Shiro, Shiro, he's _alive_! They found him, they rescued him! He's not a slave for the galra empire anymore! He has a rebel ship sending out code for _me_ , so I can find him!”

 

“That does sound like Matt.” Shiro grinned down at her. “He did take way too many pirate and spy novels with him to Kerberos. And he wouldn't stop quoting-”

 

“ _Swashbuckling Spy_ ,” they finished in unison, still grinning at each other.

 

Katie groaned. “God, I _hated_ this novel. He wouldn't stop talking about how it was the pinnacle of human ingenuity in literature-”

 

“-why settle for a pirate story _or_ the allure of secret agents when you can have _both_ in one book, just imagine-”

 

“- and then he would start talking in this atrocious fake pirate accent-”

 

“Oh please, his attempts at a British-sounding James Bond were so much _worse_.”

 

They laughed so hard they slid back down to the floor and Shiro could feel something inside of him loosen at the idea that Matt was out there somewhere, as close to safe as he could get with the hand they had been dealt.

 

“We're going to find him.” Katie was staring up at the ceiling with a wistful smile on her face, still out of breath from the laughter they had barely recovered from.

 

“Yeah, we will.” And for the first time in months he actually felt anywhere near as sure of it as he was trying to sound.

 

 

It wasn't too long after that that Shiro managed to convince Katie to forward the new coordinates to Allura and Coran and let them handle narrowing down the location and plotting a route. They set out to find the others and maybe join them for whatever they were doing. One of the mice came across them and was nice enough to show them the way to the pool.

 

It was indeed right side up again, beautifully illuminated by a shifting blue glow that Shiro eventually recognized as Noodle. She was swimming lazy circles along the entire length of the water. A quick search of the room led to an awkward and uncomfortable-looking cuddle pile on top of a group of lounge chairs at the edge of the pool. Lance was draped over both Keith and Hunk, the leg thrown over Hunk's knees bent so that the big toe just barely brushed the water. On every other round Noodle would gently boop the toe in passing and Lance would make the most adorable plaintive noise before snuggling deeper into Keith's shoulder. Keith's left arm looked like the circulation had been cut off for a while where it was wedged half under Lance and half under Hunk.

 

Shiro and Katie looked at each other for a moment before shrugging, throwing on a pair of bathrobes and joining the fray. Shiro pressed himself into Keith's other side while Katie settled in next to Hunk. His human arm ended up slung over Keith's waist, the hand landing on Lance's arm.

 

For the first time in months exhaustion actually managed to drag him into a deep sleep almost as soon as he was lying down. Maybe it was the soothing lights or the emotional roller coaster that had been the last few days. He didn't wake up once until he was gently shaken awake by a tired-looking Coran with deep bags under his eyes.

 

“Could you coral the others and get them to the command center as soon as possible? We have found further information on the coordinates Number Five decrypted yesterday and wanted to discuss our plan with all of you.”

 

“Before breakfast? I can't think when I'm hungry.” Hunk almost rolled onto Katie, who shoved him back into Lance.

 

“Can't we just eat while we discuss your plan?” Katie yawned, rolling her shoulders back while stretching her left arm, her hair a disarrayed bird's nest.

 

“I do not think that would be wise.” No one wanted to argue with the serious look on his face, so they scrambled out of the lounge chairs with only minimal grumbling (including from Hunk's stomach) and minor accidental elbowing.

 

Keith's arm seemed indeed to have lost all feeling at that point and he was griping at Lance about the pin and needles most of the way back. Shiro was ready to step in should the argument get out of hand at any point, especially since Hunk was just as much to blame for the state of Keith's arm, but Lance never once argued back, just kept grinning dopeyly at Keith, until Keith eventually stopped entirely, too flustered for words and just quietly grumbling to himself. Shiro looked over at Katie, eyebrow raised. As soon as their eyes met they were both giggling. Unlike Katie, Shiro at least tried to hide it behind his hand when Keith turned to glare at them, face even redder than before. Lance, as usual, went on obliviously a few steps ahead with Hunk, consoling him about the lack of food.

 

By the time they arrived at the command center, the mood had sombered again. Katie had stopped pestering Keith about his blushing, Keith had his arms crossed over his chest to stop himself from uselessly fiddling with the pouch on his belt and Hunk and Lance were walking more closely together than strictly necessary, occasionally exchanging worried glances. Shiro could feel the tension settling into his own shoulders, too, they felt a lot more taut than before when he tried to roll them back. Coran was rarely this serious, unless the situation called for it.

 

When they, somewhat hesitantly, entered the room they were greeted by an equally tired-looking Allura, her hair falling out of her usual battle up-do in wild, untidy strands.

 

“Paladins,” she greeted them, one hand coming up to massage her temple. “I have bad news for you. The coordinates Pidge deciphered lead to a planet in an area surrounded by galra military outposts. From what we could find out the planet itself is mostly disregarded by them due to a lack of natural resources. The surface is mostly uninhabitable so there is no life to draw quintessence from. But even if we took the risk and opened a wormhole as close to the planet as possible, there is no way we could get close without immediately being spotted by the galra. This planet might be a secret underground base of operations for the rebels, we cannot afford to draw a battle to our allies' doorstep. Especially since the planet does not support enough inhabitants to be much help in a potential fight.”

 

“When you say 'surrounded by military outposts',” Hunk said, shifting on his feet. “Just how many galra are we talking about?”

 

Allura looked at them, her expression blank. “Major outposts. If the information provided by our network of allies is correct the smallest one harbors a fleet of at least 100 ships. It would seem that the planets surrounding our destination are much more plentiful in their resources and a convenient distance from several colonialized planets further out, in varying directions.”

 

“So what you're trying to tell us is that we have to sneak onto a planet that is essentially in the middle of a galra military hot spot.” Lance swallowed hard. “What are our odds of actually getting in there undetected?”

  
Katie swallowed hard. “Even if I can make my cloaking technology last long enough to get in from far enough away that we won’t arise suspicion...” Her gaze wandered to the windows looking out into space. “Not good. With so many galra outposts we would have to be light years away and I'm nowhere near having the technology at that point.”

 

Hunk looked like he was having a stomach ache, his eyes kept flicking over to Katie. Shiro could not bring himself to even glance in her direction. Allura and Coran were fiddling with something on the map that doubtlessly did not need adjusting. Even Keith was shifting his weight back and forth between his left and right leg, even if he did it subtly.

 

Uncomfortable silence filled the room and Shiro found himself desperately wishing the moment-ruining castle alarm back.

 

"We need a distraction."

 

Everyone turned to Lance at once, varying degrees of incredulity on their faces. For once, Lance didn't even seem to notice that everyone's eyes were on him. He was stroking his chin absentmindedly, staring unseeingly at the control panel in the middle of the room.

 

"We need something big, I mean, huge. I'm talking reaaaally freaking huge. If we find something to distract them long enough we might be able to sneak in so far that the cloaking will hold up long enough that it won't get too obvious where we are heading."

 

"Oh, and where would we happen to find something big and important enough to distract an entire system of galra military hot spots, at the same time?" Katie gave Lance the angriest glare Shiro had ever seen her direct at a teammate. "And even if we magically find something that could manage that, it would also have to be able to somehow short out all of their tech, since they have security systems everywhere and we can't exactly spare the time to hack into their systems one by one."

 

Just as Lance opened his mouth to reply, a brightly glowing silhouette lifted itself up as high as possible on top of his head. The eery blue glow started pulsing and Lance's face scrunched up unhappily.

 

"Nope, no way. You're still weak from thousands of years in a galra prison. We only rescued you a few days ago, dude! What little energy you might have regained died when you saved my life, crushed a bunch of galra druids and then helped Pidge hack into galra servers galaxies away." Lance crossed his arms over his chest, the movement making the bathrobe fall open a little over his chest. Shiro stared at the tempting display of smooth brown skin a lot longer than was appropriate given the circumstances. Sadly, he had never been very good at telling the gay thoughts 'not now'.

 

Shiro's eyes drifted over to Keith. Whose gaze was resting on the exact same spot on Lance's chest Shiro had just in a great exercise of willpower managed to look away from, a faint blush on his cheeks and a faraway look in his eyes. Shiro smirked to himself. Good to know he was not the only one suffering here.

 

Shiro's first happy musings of the day were interrupted by Lance gesticulating wildly, mouth open in indignant outrage. "Definitely not! That is way too dangerous! Do you want to get caught by Haggar again?!"

 

The blue pulsing light had taken up a faster rhythm and there was a faint hiss audible from where Noodle peered down at Lance's face.

 

Katie cut Lance's tirade short. "Is Noodle offering to be the distraction you just talked about?"

 

That stopped Lance in his tracks for a moment. "Yes, but you can't possibly think that would work, Pidge, come o-"

 

"Noodle, do you think you can do it without risking yourself or the mission objectives?" Noodle nodded graciously, ignoring Lance's furious huffing. Katie turned on him with the most somberly serious expression Shiro had seen on her all day. "There you have it. I trust Noodle's judgment of what she is and isn't capable of. So should you." Her eyes lit up and she started bouncing on the balls of her feet. "This can work. Noodle can be a giant distraction and disrupt the galra tech at the same time! We can save Matt!"

 

She looked so happy it broke Shiro's heart to have to be the one to rain on her parade. "Are we sure we can trust Noodle's assessment? She hasn't been confronted with galra tech for millennia, apart from what little she might have been exposed to on the prison ship. And she seemed very tired after helping you hack those galra servers."

 

Just as expected Katie's face fell. She viciously bit down on the slight quivering in her lips but Shiro had caught it anyway, in the brief second it had been allowed to exist. Katie narrowed her eyes at him and stuck out her chin.

 

"As someone who has been imprisoned by the galra before, don't you think she has a vested interest not to get captured again? Besides, if she fails she would put all of us at risk. Including Lance. Do you really think she would risk that? Or suggest to be separated from Lance if she wasn't sure?"

 

Shiro risked a quick glance in Lance's direction. Which turned out to be a mistake because those big pleading blue eyes were almost enough to change his mind about the logic of Katie's argument. He was the leader. He couldn't afford to ignore sound reasoning because a pretty boy was making puppy dog eyes at him. Not even when said boy was one of his boyfriends. And had very pretty eyes. And a very adorable pout. And the softest, best-smelling hair in the entire-

 

_Not now, gay thoughts!_

 

With a sigh and an impressive amount of willpower – in his opinion at least – Shiro managed to turn his gaze away from Lance and back to Katie. He gave her an apologetic smile. Her chin lowered a bit.

 

"You're right, I didn't think of it like that. We will trust Noodle's judgment and start formulating a plan."

 

One brief look at Lance's furious face was enough to know for sure that he had just been demoted from his status as favorite boyfriend.

 

***

 

After the decision had been made and everyone but Lance had agreed with the sound logic behind both Katie and Noodle's arguments, Allura and Coran had deemed it imperative to have breakfast together before the intense planning phase began, much to Katie's protests. Lance, usually the one to make a difficult situation lighter and more bearable, kept pushing his food around on his plate, only replying in monosyllables and not looking at any of them, except to occasionally tell them that this was a very bad idea and that he had a really bad feeling about it. Shiro suspected that feeling was mostly based on the dangerous role Noodle held in this particular plan. Keith was the only one who dared to try to touch Lance and reassure him during the meal and got nothing but the cold shoulder for his efforts.

 

The plan in itself was fairly simple. Coran volunteered to bring Noodle in position in a camouflaged escape pod and stay with her once she would be grown to full size, hiding behind parts of her to take out any approaching galra ships from cover. Noodle's transformation would take place on the side of the outposts opposite of the planet with Matt's coordinates, yet close enough that it would draw all attention away from their destination, even that of the outposts furthest away from her and nearest to their goal. A series of impressions in their minds showed them that Noodle could survive exposures to space for several hours without a problem, and that her 'final boss form', as Hunk had dubbed it, would indeed be impressive and humongous enough to draw the necessary attention.

 

Shiro wasn't really looking forward to seeing evidence of that. He wanted to trust Noodle, for Lance's sake if nothing else. What she had shown him a few days back, what she had demonstrated repeatedly since then – Shiro could relate to what she had seen in Lance and how she had become so attached so quickly. She wasn't alone in her fierce need to protect Lance, not by far, and especially not after the events of this week.

 

But being confronted with the sheer power and size of her made him wary about what she would be capable of once she had regained what the galra had taken from her. They still knew next to nothing about why Haggar had even been interested in Noodle in the first place. Or what exactly Noodle was, what the limits and extents of her powers were. Shiro could feel her eyes on him repeatedly whenever those thoughts crossed his mind during the strategy meeting. She was probably aware of his concerns, but didn't address him directly about it.

 

Lance, on the other hand, had no problem with voicing his numerous misgivings about this operation. "How can you be sure that you will be able to hold your other form as long as you need to? You'll be out in space, there will be no water to draw power from. We can't just make a stop on another handy water planet, if there even is one on the way, because Pidge would strangle us for any delay. Also, if anyone managed to get a signal out before we wiped the floor with them on the previous water planet, they will expect you to show up somewhere and be prepared and this whole plan depends entirely on the element of surprise."

 

There was a moment of silence filled by nothing but the glare Lance was sending up in the vague direction of where Noodle was still perched on his head. Followed by wild gesticulating and a very pinched expression.

 

"Oh, don't give me this cheese about being thousands of years old and 'knowing from experience'. How many times have you had your powers completely depleted by spending thousands of years in a magical galra prison?"

 

The glow of Noodle's markings dimmed a bit. Lance crossed his arms over his chest again, revealing another tempting glimpse of skin, a grim smile stretching his pretty lips thin. "That's what I thought."

 

"Lance, stop." Allura looked at him, then flicked her gaze over to Katie, who was furiously typing on her laptop, not looking at any of them, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly. Shiro's heart broke a little further for her. "I know this is not an ideal plan. There is a lot at risk here. But I can't think of a better one, an alternative that would mean less of a danger to all of you, to our entire mission." Katie's hands were starting to shake slightly on the keyboard. "But this is Pidge's family. This is important. Wouldn't you risk it, too, if the alternative was to abandon a sibling to an unknown fate?"

 

Katie's head finally shot up from where it had been bent over her keyboard ever since Lance had started speaking again. She gave Allura the broadest and most genuine smile Shiro had ever seen them exchange, but he only had a brief second to make note of their more recent bonding. After the low blow that had just been dealt, he couldn't spend more time on anything else before his gaze wandered back to Lance.

 

Lance's arms had uncrossed, balled into useless fists at his side, his shoulders slumped. "I get it," he whispered, drawing the attention back to him immediately. His gaze didn't move from the floor in front of him. "I really get it, Pidge. I don't want to leave your brother behind. I don't want to be the one stopping you from going after him immediately. But there is something not right here. There are too many holes in this plan, too much that can go wrong." He took a shaky breath. "I just have a very bad feeling about this. Please, can we trust in that?"

 

Katie looked like she was about to viciously tear into Lance's admission. She deflated when Hunk's hand fell onto her shoulder. He shook his head at her.

 

"Lance is right, you know." Hunk waited until Lance finally looked up and they shared a hesitant smile. "Remember what happened with our last grand scheme? And there was just a tiny little hole in that plan, and we had expert back-up. Lance still nearly died. Or that half-cooked plan at the water planet. Where Lance almost died again. Are we sure there is nothing we can do that has a better chance of not ending up with my best friend almost dying again? Or, you know, I would also be fine with no one else almost dying."

 

"If you're that worried we can just leave Lance at the castle with Allura." Pidge pouted at all of them. "But I'm going. This is my brother. I finally know where he is. He is alive and in the middle of this. I don't have the time to wait, so either you can go along with this and help me, or I will go out there on my own."

 

Hunk and Lance exchanged a pained look before they both slumped in defeat. Katie went back to discussing the exact details of the strategy with Allura and Noodle. Lance carefully set her down by the control panel before he left for the other side of the room, closely followed by Hunk and Coran.

 

Shiro wouldn't have been able to stop himself from following if there had been an army of galra between them. His mind wasn't on the strategic part at all, couldn't focus on all those details he was usually so good at. He exchanged a quick look with Keith, who gave him a determined nod as he took his place at the control panel before sending him after Lance with a soft smile that made his heart flutter a bit. The two of them were such a good team already. Shiro couldn't wait for the day when this wordless, easy intimacy would include Lance as well.

 

He stopped when he came within earshot of the speech Coran was currently giving Lance. "-understand, my boy. I am not comfortable with this half-formed plan, either. But sometimes you don't have the time to make a better one without losing what it is you seek to protect. Like that time Hunk and I landed on the Balmera to get the battle-class crystal we needed to get the castle running again in time to ward off the galra and save your life. Or the times when you risked your own life to save me, and then Keith." The gloved hand on Lance's shoulder squeezed comfortingly. "We will do our best to all keep an eye on each other and keep safe as well as we can, alright? That is the best we can do in this war."

 

With that and a last sad look at Lance's slumped back, Coran returned to the control panel and the current strategy meeting. Shiro approached hesitantly, not sure he was welcome in this tiny bubble occupied by Hunk and Lance. They were leaning into each other, Hunk's arm slung around Lance's waist protectively. Hunk waved Shiro closer with a sunny smile that didn't reach his eyes when he spotted him over Lance's head.

 

"Hey, Shiro." Lance lifted his head enough to look at him at Hunk's greeting. There was nothing but resignation on his face, his eyes carefully searching Shiro's face for signs of an oncoming scolding. Shiro's heart fractured into even tinier pieces. He idly wondered if it would survive that day intact.

 

"I'm sorry, Lance." He slowly moved his hand until it rested on Lance's arm, telegraphing his every move. He breathed a sigh of relief when he wasn't shrugged off immediately. "Your concerns are valid, and I'm not sure about this plan, either. But you heard Pidge. If we don't help her, she's going to find a way to get to Matt on her own. I can't let that happen." He inhaled harshly. "And I can't leave Matt behind. He was my friend, too."

 

Lance offered him a wobbly smile. "I know. I get it, really. My gut feeling isn't more important than saving Matt." Lance's other hand carefully brushed over the hand Shiro still had resting on his arm and Shiro couldn't resist anymore. He pulled Lance out of Hunk's arm and into the circle of his own, burying his nose in the softest hair in all of the universe, goosebumps raising on his skin at Lance's startled gasp. "Your gut feeling is very important. I just wanted to make sure you understand why we can't listen to it this time. If the stakes were any lower..." He gently pushed Lance away by the shoulders until they were far enough apart again to be able to look at each other without going cross-eyed. "You are important. You are a valued member of this team and we're not disregarding your opinion because we think it doesn't matter. Okay?"

 

Lance's eyes were very watery and he sniffed a few times, but he didn't look away and the minuscule but genuine smile on his face had Shiro's heart picking up an unnecessarily fast rhythm. He really had managed to get his hands on the two most beautiful boys in the entire galaxy, hadn't he?

 

"I get it, I get it. Sheesh, Shiro, you don't have to pull out the big motivational speeches every time you guys have to ignore my-" Shiro decided that the only reasonable way to end this sentence was with his lips. The hair on his arms stood up as Lance melted against him, his lips soft as flower petals and warm and inviting against his own and Shiro couldn't hear anything over the pounding of his own heart in his ears and Lance's tiny startled inhale. He tasted of weird alien fruit and coffee and the scent of the pool was still clinging to his skin and Shiro could have stood here all day doing just this if it hadn't been for Hunk uncomfortably clearing his throat behind them.

 

Shiro decided he could risk focusing on Lance just a little while longer even as he reluctantly separated their lips from each other. "Not ignoring." When had his voice gone this raspy? And damn, Lance's eyes looked even bigger and prettier with his pupils dilated like that. "We're not ignoring you. Not ever again, I swear. And I'm really sorry we cannot take your valid concerns into consideration this time." He bit his lip, a pleased tingling running down his spine when Lance's eyes immediately dropped to his mouth and lingered there. "We're making a mess out of showing you with actions that you really are an important and competent part of Voltron and that we need you, aren't we?"

 

Lance smiled at him, a real one that reached his eyes and made them shine even more than usual, and Shiro's heart struggled to remember how to beat normally.

 

"It's fine. I think I can deal with your way of making it up to me."

 

The moment broke when Allura called them over to the planning table. Shiro only had time to briefly catch Lance's hand in his and squeeze before they were back in the middle of the detail discussion.

 

***

 

After the initial planning phase, things moved very fast. Allura would stay in the castle to be able to wormhole them out as soon as possible in case of an emergency. Not that it would help them too much, since the castle would have to stay well out of reach to remain undiscovered. Coran would fly Noodle to her position in the pod and the paladins would accompany Katie to the planet, some of them standing guard outside for easier access in case Coran and Noodle would need back-up. The rest would follow Katie into the underground system in case it wasn't as free of galra as expected.

 

There was a lot of arguing about who would stand guard and how they would hide their lions in case that any of the galra would remember to look their way in the midst of all the distraction. In the end, it was decided that Lance and Keith would be the best combination for accompanying Katie. A combination of melee and range fighter seemed advisable just in case and Hunk's weapon was a little too inexact to be trusted in hastily built underground rebellion bases. Additionally, Hunk and Shiro had the bigger lions and since the plan was for Coran and Noodle to engage as little as possible and make them a path for escape if they couldn't find one of their own. The advantage of just tackling a path for them was not to be underestimated.

By the time they finally were all in their armor and ready to go they were already in position to wormhole as close to their destination as Katie deemed safe for them to not be immediately detected. There was no time for more than hurried last-minute hugs and no one wanted to say goodbye and potentially jinx what little luck they had. The only ones who disregarded that unspoken pact were Coran, Hunk and Lance, who gathered in a tearful group hug before parting to climb into their respective rides. Noodle insisted that Coran hold her out to Lance so she could nudge his forehead with her nose which led to more tears from Lance – and then they were already all in their lions and getting ready to fly out as soon as Coran gave them the signal.

 

The wait was almost unbearable, everyone too busy tracking Coran and Noodle's progress on their screens to dare a video call to anyone else. The tiny blinking dot stopped at last, everyone waiting with baited breath for what would happen next. A gasp from Allura's end of the comms was the first thing to alert them, quickly followed by Katie's gleeful "Their systems are completely scrambled!" and Coran's "Go!"

 

And then they were out in the open. In the distance, Shiro could see a giant glowing mass moving relentlessly. All galra attention seemed to be turned towards Noodle writhing showily, from what he could see.

 

Shiro felt as secure as he ever did on a mission with Katie's cloaking technology keeping the lions all but invisible and their distraction seeming to work just as intended. There wasn't a shimmer of purple-pink anywhere to be seen so hopefully none of the bases were currently hosting any powerful druids.

 

There was a flickering in the corner of Black's screen that turned into Lance's face. "Is anyone else as concerned about this as I am? Because I am very concerned.

 

Keith's face appeared in the opposite corner, rolling his eyes. "We planned this out, Lance. Everything will work out fine, stop fretting. So far everything has gone exactly to plan."

 

Lance gaped at him. "Everything will work out just fine??? Are you crazy?? We're going in with a half-baked plan and no idea what to expect! We're lucky if all of us come out alive!"

 

Hunk's face popped up in the top center of Black's screen. Shiro made a brief mental note to tell him sometime that at least once he had been the head of Voltron's head for a brief moment. The thought drifted to the back of his mind as he focused back on the way Hunk was clutching Yellow's controls and biting his lip. "I don't know, guys, I think Lance might have a point." Katie's video feed popped into view right over Keith's, glaring burning holes into all of them.

 

"I'm not saying we should abandon your brother out here on some random rebel planet in the middle of galra!" Hunk shook his head so hard he hit himself in the eye with the end of his bandana, hands raised up as if they could shield him from Katie's wrath. "I'm just saying, maybe we should be really extra careful and not rush in and recklessly get ourselves killed."

 

When Katie and Keith just scoffed at him, Hunk threw his arms out with a huff. "Look, I just really don't need anyone else bleeding out on me, okay? My best friend almost died in my arms maybe a week ago. On a mission we all thought was going to be comparatively easy. And then he almost drowned a few days later. So can we maybe listen to Lance, as the one repeatedly almost dying, when he says he has a bad feeling about this and we should be careful?"

 

Lance clutched his chest dramatically, genuine tears welling up in his eyes. "Hunk, my man, my buddy. Thanks, that really means a lot to me."

 

Hunk grinned at him. "Anytime, man. I've got your back." He frowned. "Well, except when you're wrong. Like that time on Feitos-947 when you thought that funeral robe was appropriate for a festive banquet-"

 

Shiro took one look at Lance rearing up for a mock-indignant counter debate and decided it was time to step in. Banter only did so much against pre-battle jitters and it was time to get serious again.

 

"Listen up, team. We should take Lance and Hunk's concern seriously, understood? No running off headlessly, this is a very delicate mission." He kept his eyes on Katie until she slumped back into her seat with a huff, arms crossed. "We may not have much time at our hands but don't forget: Patience yields focus." His eyes wandered to Keith. They held eye contact for a moment. Eventually Keith broke it with an eye roll and a murmured "Yeah, whatever." Shiro smiled as Keith blew his bangs out of his eyes, his human hand itching to gently brush it behind his ear himself.

 

Lance looked like he was about to argue the point further but fell back with a pout when Shiro directed that same smile at him.

 

"Okay, great, whatever. Let's head into certain doom, yippie!"

 

They touched down on the surface of the rebel planet before another bout of pointless arguing could start up. Shiro touched down on the ground with a sigh, leaving his hand on Black's front leg for a moment. His connection to his lion wasn't as reassuring as usual, the strings connecting them all vibrating with underlying concern. Usually, they felt like a safety net, there to catch him if he fell. Today, they were a safety net during an earth quake – still better than nothing, but not very trustworthy.

 

Thankfully, the barren planet surface did at least have sufficiently high rock outcroppings to hide even Black behind once time would run out on them and the cloaking tech would no longer hold up. They all assembled at Black's feet one last time before splitting off to their positions.

 

They were standing in a somewhat awkward circle, nodding earnestly at each other. Shiro couldn't tell for sure through the visor of the helmet, but he thought he saw Hunk's eyes glisten suspiciously. No one else made a move for a moment and Shiro was grateful that he apparently wasn't the only one scared to make this moment feel like goodbye even more than their departure from the bridge of the castle had been.

 

Then Lance tackled him to the floor, lanky arms winding around him and clutching him so tightly their armor creaked in protest where it was pressed together.

 

"I really want to kiss the living Cheesus out of you right now, but the atmosphere on this planet isn't breathable." He lifted his head from Shiro's chest to look at him, tears streaming down his face visible even through the helmet. "Raincheck?" Lance bit his lip, arms tensing even further around Shiro.

 

Shiro smiled through the bone-deep ache in his heart, trying to blink the gathering moisture out of his eyes. "I will gladly let you kiss the living Cheesus out of me the moment we are back in a breathable atmosphere."

 

When Shiro finally remembered that they were on a tight schedule and he had other things to do than stare into Lance's eyes and clutching him to his chest like a beloved comfort plushie, Keith was standing over them, fiddling with his blade and staring over at where Shiro could make out flashes of green and yellow. "If you two are done being ridiculous. Hunk and Pidge have moved into position."

 

Lance clambered off of Shiro and pulled Keith into a bone-crushing hug, startling a surprised yelp out of him. Shiro could just barely hear him whisper "Don't do anything silly, I wanna put a vacant expression on your face, too" before Lance let go as abruptly as he had attached himself. He spun on his heel and walked backward toward Hunk and Katie, pointing from his eyes to Shiro and Keith. "You two better prepare. The moment we have a minute to breathe back on the castle I expect a sandwich hug. I demand to be cozily squished between my two very attractive boyfriends. We're going to be a sandwich of pretty!" He yelped as his heel caught on a small rock sticking out of the ground and he flailed his way to the ground. When Shiro looked up, he saw the same fond smile on Keith's face that he could feel stretching his own. Keith looked back at him only for a brief moment before they both turned their attention back on Lance laboriously getting to his feet and brushing the dust from his armor, walking off with his head held high.

 

It didn't take long to communicate _We chose right_ , after all.

 

 

 

Hunk and Lance's prolonged, tearful second hug at the hidden entrance to the rebel base – squeezed into a narrow crevice between two rock outcroppings so small Shiro and Hunk had no chance of forcing themselves through – was cut short by Katie dragging Lance off by his ear. They watched for a moment as Katie, Keith and Lance squeezed themselves in one by one, swearing quietly the entire time.

 

"Fucking knuckqueasle, when does this thing get biggER!" There was a sharp inhale from Katie's end of the comms. "Okay, found it! There's the actual entrance! It needs a password though..." - "Lance, take your elbows out of my ribs!" - "I'm not doing this on purpose, okay, my elbows – _quiznak_ – have nowhere else to go!"

 

Shiro mostly tuned out the banter between Lance and Keith as they fought their way through the narrow crevice, trying not to shift too obviously on his feet. Hunk was fidgeting next to him, nearly jumping in the air when Katie let out a triumphant yell. "I'm in! Time to rescue my brother!"

 

Silence fell in the open group channel as the three of them started sneaking down the tunnels of the rebel base. Shiro didn't dare ask for a status update, not wanting them to potentially give away their position by speaking. They couldn't know if the rebels were actually still in that base or if it had been taken over by galra in the meantime. This could be a trap. Someone could have figured out that the rebels were projecting coded messages from here and taken over, letting the message keep projecting to lure out whoever was foolish enough to try to get to them here.

 

In the distance, Shiro could see galra lasers illuminating the darkness of space like fireworks where they were trying in vain to hit the undulating mass of Noodle's seemingly infinite coils and heads. A loud whooping came from Coran's end of the comms and Shiro was pretty sure what he was seeing was Coran riding one of Noodle's heads like it was a rodeo. It could also have been his eyes playing tricks on him due to the distance.

 

"Do you think the rebels fit through that crevice thing because there's nothing to eat on this planet?" Hunk kicked a small stone into the closest outcropping. "Or are they just really discriminatory against anyone not scrawny enough to fit through there?"

 

Shiro flexed the fingers of his galra arm, the faint hum of the foreign technology charging up soothing for once. "Rebel guerilla forces don't usually get much food, especially not on an outpost like this. They had to use what they had in the way of natural defenses." Shiro shrugged.

 

"Still not very inclusive of them." Hunk fiddled with his bayard once he had run out of rocks to kick. "Also probably not a good strategy to have to send people based on how underfed they are."

 

"There are some alien races that are just naturally built slim enough to fit through here." Flashes of bright lights and roaring crowds flickered through his mind, sending a tingle of weariness and the memory of muscles so sore they barely obeyed down his spine.

 

Hunk offered him a sad smile. "Yeah, I guess so. Noodle would be just fine here, in her tiny form. Too bad she's needed as a distraction." He frowned. "I would feel better if she were in there with the others."

 

Shiro tuned out Allura needling Coran into even more distracting acrobatics by insisting that he had only come into second place during the Great Race of Hrrrt to focus more closely on Hunk.

 

"You would?" Shiro couldn't seem to shake the need to recoil every time Noodle touched his mind. He had nothing against her, per se, and certainly not on principle like Keith did. But he had the sinking feeling his time with the druids had made it impossible for him to be as at ease with anything capable of mind control as he pretended to be for Lance's sake.

 

"Yeah." Hunk dragged his toes through the dusty, dry ground. "She wouldn't let anything happen to Lance. Or any of the others, but especially not Lance. Who I'm rightfully worried about the most right now."

 

Shiro smiled to himself at the furiously whispered "Keith, can't you watch where you're going??" in his ear. "Me too. But Keith will be just as intent on keeping him safe."

 

"He might be intent, but he's also easily distracted by the need to recklessly throw himself into danger all the time. And he can't beat a literal space goddess. Sorry, galra Keith, actual alien doesn't trump giant space snake."

 

There was no whispered reply from Keith. Shiro's heart stuttered in his chest for a moment, then started to race when the next sound coming through the comms was that of laser blasts hitting a shield. Katie yelled "Matt!" and then everything turned into a mess of yelled names, an occasional "Look out!" or "On your six!" thrown in.

 

Sweat started running down Shiro's temple and he cursed the crevice for being too narrow, their plan for being so short-sighted, Noodle and Coran for needing them to stand on guard in case they needed support. Shiro risked a look over at Hunk. His hands clutched the bayard painfully tight, shaking every time he tried to relax them somewhat. His face looked ashen even through the tinted visor.

 

It took him a very long while to return Shiro's gaze. He flinched in time with every pained grunt coming through the comms. "We should be in there."

 

Shiro couldn't help but agree when the muffled taunts of a Galra commander filtered through, followed immediately by the regretfully clear sounds of Keith falling for the bait.

 

Hunk shook his head. "It's cute when he can't help falling for Lance's lame baiting remarks but it's a really bad habit for battle."

 

"Come on, Keith." Shiro clenched his fists until a loud creak of protest from the galra hand snapped him out of it. The stale aftertaste of the suit's filtered air seemed to block his throat. "Don't let them get to you, you're better than this. Patience yields focus."

 

For a glorious few moments, it sounded like he had been heard. Keith's breathing was slowing down, there were less sword-clashing sounds, no yelled replies to the galra's continued taunting.

Katie and Matt were caught somewhere between triumphant victory yells, tearful reunion and gentle ribbing, obviously done with the second galra commander. Lance was helping Keith corner the remaining galra.

 

Shiro breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Lance tell them "There's no way out. You can't win this one."

 

The sound of a sword driving through armor and sinking into the soft tissue behind it. Wet choking noises, right in his ear. Desperate gasping for air. Yelling, outraged and panicked and filled with abject horror. A barely there "No", small and broken and whisper-thin.

 

An almighty, voiceless roar and then the entire universe became a massive explosion of bright, glowing blue.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the cliffhanger. And the fact that I wrote the 'They rescue Matt!' chapter very differently from how I imagined it - it just developed into this in Shiro's point of view. Next chapter is going to be Keith's POV and you will get more of what exactly happened in that rebel base (and also what happened outside after) - but don't worry it won't be a repeat of chapter 4, I won't write out the entire thing from three different perspectives again ;)  
> In the meantime, I would greatly enjoy it if any of you felt like speculating at me what you think happened at the end here while I'm working on the next chapter ;)


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